Marko Mitrović came back to the Windy City on Sunday with a new badge and an old memory, facing the Chicago Fire for the first time as an opposing coach. The New England Revolution visit in a matchup that carries real weight in the Eastern Conference, with both teams sitting among the group chasing the top of the table.
For Mitrović, it is a familiar place made unfamiliar by the job. He spent four seasons with the Chicago Fire from 2016 to 2019 as Veljko Paunović’s lead assistant, then returned to Chicago with the U.S. youth national team before taking over the New England Revolution ahead of the 2026 season. In that span, he helped guide the Americans to the quarterfinals at both the 2024 Paris Olympics and the 2025 FIFA U-20 World Cup, a record that helps explain why New England hired him for a club that wants the same level of control and consistency in league play.
The reason this meeting lands now is simple enough. The New England Revolution and the Chicago Fire entered it as the Eastern Conference’s third- and fourth-placed teams, and the Revolution had already pushed past Chicago in the standings after winning in New York earlier in the week, as Gregg Berhalter put it. That made Sunday less of a reunion than a test of whether New England can keep its place and whether Chicago can answer back against a coach who knows the organization well.
Matt Polster is one of the few people in the match who can talk about both sides without guessing. He played for the Chicago Fire between 2015 and 2018 and remembered the squad around him as deep with veteran voices. Bastian Schweinsteiger, Dax McCarty and Juninho were the names that stood out to him, and he said the group, with Mitrović and Pauno on the bench, felt like a team that was moving in the right direction even if it did not go as far as it wanted. That matters because Chicago still measures itself against the 2017 season, when the Fire finished third in the Eastern Conference and made their only playoff appearance between 2012 and 2025, but that run ended before it could become something more lasting.
That is the edge in this game. Berhalter is in his second year with Chicago, trying to build a stronger standard, while New England has mixed experience with younger pieces such as Peyton Miller, Ethan Kohler and Brooklyn Raines alongside established players like Carles Gil, Matt Turner, Matt Polster and Diego Fagúndez. The Revolution also added Dániel Gazdag from Columbus last week, a move that adds another layer to a group already looking more settled than it did earlier in the season. Chicago has the history. New England has the coach who knows that history from the inside.
What comes next is not a memory test. It is a standings test, and the answer will come from how Chicago handles a coach who spent years inside its building and how quickly New England can turn that familiarity into points. Mitrović has already shown he can prepare teams for high-stakes moments; Sunday asks whether he can do it against the club that helped shape his view of the league.
