For all the pride that the club and its fans have taken in the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup over the years, the Chicago Fire enter the 2018 edition of the tournament with relatively minimal fanfare. The team is treating it as Just Another Game in an otherwise punishing season thrust onto a thin and trundling squad. Enthusiasm among fans seems uncharacteristically muted this year, for reasons I won’t even try to guess at.
You can’t really make anyone care about something if they really don’t want to. If the players and Veljko Paunovic are viewing tomorow’s clash with Columbus as just more fixture congestion, we’re going to get the result we deserve.