Our annual collection of post-mortems rolls on with the three teams that got swept in Round One of the Audi 2025 MLS Cup Playoffs.

You can find the Western Conference non-playoff teams here , the Eastern Conference non-playoff teams here and the Wild Card losers here .

In we go, examining the seasons of teams that, for the most part, cleared the bar expected of them.

Chicago Fire FC

2025 in a nutshell

I’m going to distill it down to the numbers:

Against Eastern Conference playoff teams, the Fire went 5W-9L-2D with a -10 goal differential.

Against everyone else, they were 10W-2L-6D with a +18 goal differential.

Chicago were a good team, but not good enough – because they were a little soft and a little sloppy – to really hang with the league’s best. They proved it all year,

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