Major League Soccer’s Homegrown Player Rule hasn’t been a guaranteed path to a long-term place in the first-team lineup.
Starting in the 2009 season, the rule allowed MLS teams to sign players from their youth academies to first-team contracts. In the 15 years since, only 52 homegrown players have reached 100 league appearances, including only one for the Chicago Fire entering this season.
That number changed on May 15 when midfielder Brian Gutiérrez played his 100th game for the Fire against Charlotte FC. And goalkeeper Chris Brady, with 50 games, is on track to join him in the coming seasons.
What’s more, Brady is only 20 years old and Gutiérrez turned 21 last month, and both already are first-team staples. And both grew up in the Chicago area, giving the Fire a homegrown presence that’s clear to see.
“One thing you can tell is that we believe in our young players,” Fire coach Frank Klopas said. “We have no problem putting them into play. I believe in them. They have to earn that right, the way they train and the way they take the opportunities that are given. For me, if you have the quality and the ability, age makes no difference.”
In addition to becoming the second homegrown Fire player to reach 100 games, Gutiérrez is only the ninth player in league history to reach that mark before turning 21.
This is his fifth season with the first team after signing his first professional contract in 2020 and his 11th year with the Fire overall. He joined the Chicago Fire Academy in 2013 at age 10. He was playing for the Chicago Magic when his coach, Raul Barillas, took an assistant coaching job with the academy’s under-13 team and brought Gutiérrez with him for a weeklong tryout.
“Without (Barillas) I wouldn’t be here and I’ve always been thankful for that,” Gutiérrez said. “He got me that look. He brought me into the team.
“It was a big change for me because I wasn’t used to that. You know, the environment. We had to come in early and stuff like that. I was coming from the Hispanic recreation leagues where you’d just go and play football, street football. Thankfully I did really well. I made the team and from there the story continued.”
The recreation leagues Gutiérrez grew up playing in brought him close to Mauricio Pineda — the first homegrown Fire player to reach 100 appearances — when Gutiérrez was just 3. They played for the same indoor club growing up, although in different age groups so they didn’t share the field. The two were reunited with the Fire.
“We’ve always had a good relationship,” Gutiérrez said. “He’s always seen me play growing up and I’ve seen him play. When I saw him I was stoked and excited because we had those two players that played on that same team, and look at us now — playing on the first team.”
Klopas was a Fire assistant coach when Gutiérrez broke into the first team in 2020. He has been a part of Gutiérrez’s growth from a promising talent to a lineup mainstay.
“We’d see him playing with the academy and more than anything I just saw a lot of potential and quality in a young player,” Klopas said. “He’s the kind of player that can excite the crowd.
“It’s been great just to see the development because sometimes you see potential, but he had a great attitude and mentality to really work hard and I think we did a good job to gradually integrate him and give him minutes where he could develop in the right way. Even this year, he is taking a bigger step where you can see his impact over 90 minutes in every way.”
Gutiérrez’s time with the first team took off in his third season. After making 23 appearances and six starts in his first two seasons, he played in 33 games in 2022, starting 20 of them.
“I got more and more of a sense of what the league is like,” Gutiérrez said. “I was getting on the field and having those starts and earning that kind of respect on the field from my coaches and my teammates. I’m trying to just gain that confidence from them and for myself.
“Going into that 2022 season, I told myself I wanted to start more and play more. Obviously I hate being on the bench.”
Brady is in his second season as the Fire’s starting goalkeeper. He set a club record for most appearances by a homegrown keeper when he played in his 44th match for the Fire on May 18 against the Columbus Crew.
He was playing club soccer for the Downers Grove Roadrunners in 2017 when a Fire scout noticed him at an id2 camp (a national program for top youth players to be scouted).
“He had the academy director at the time contact me and my family, and it was an honor,” Brady said. “Initially I thought, ‘Wow, I’ve been selected,’ and, ‘They liked what they saw.’ Then it was, ‘Would I fit and thrive in this new environment?’
“You don’t travel a lot with a club team. You just travel locally. Whereas right off the bat we were talking about trips to Mexico and Montreal. These are things that to a 13-year-old are surprising and awe-inspiring. It was all a very different change.”
Brady played for the academy’s U-14, U-15, U-16 and U-17 teams before signing a first-team contract in 2020 — a couple of weeks after Gutiérrez signed his. Brady took a different path to his first-team spot, spending the next two years on loan to Forward Madison FC, the Fire’s United Soccer League affiliate. He got his first pro experience there.
“It taught me that this is a professional environment,” Brady said. “You’re not playing against kids anymore. You’re playing against men. A lot of the guys were playing to provide for their families, so the stakes were a lot higher than just playing for fun or because you’re good at a sport.
“It taught me a lot. I definitely matured when I went up there. It was a good experience.”
Brady returned to the Fire for the 2022 season, starting one game, but his big breakthrough didn’t come until last year. He won the starting job in the offseason and went on to start 30 of the Fire’s 34 MLS games.
“We saw him in training and could tell his ability was huge and he was waiting for his opportunity,” Klopas said. “You just have to understand with young players sometimes, it’s about them making mistakes and learning and sticking with them when mistakes do happen. That’s a part of the growth. They need minutes to develop.”
Both Gutiérrez and Brady signed their first-team contracts in March 2020, meaning the early days of their pro careers coincided with the COVID-19 lockdown.
“I was eager to work, and then when all the work stopped, it was sort of confusing,” Brady said. “After seeing players after me who have signed in the post-COVID era, if you will, they kind of get right on into it with the second team or they go on loan and then they might be getting first-team minutes for us.
“It wasn’t like that. There weren’t many options. I spent like half a year just sort of twiddling my thumbs, waiting for something to happen. We were doing individual training because we couldn’t be close to people. Definitely not a normal transition from signing your contract to the team. It was all new.”
When play resumed later that year in the MLS is Back Tournament, Gutiérrez got his first chance to get comfortable playing with the first team.
“I was kind of getting the hang of things and the groove of it,” he said. “How training is, what I need to prepare for myself. I wanted to prove people wrong, showcase my abilities and show that I could play on the team.”
Both players mentioned proving people wrong and having a chip on their shoulder. Gutiérrez’s competitive drive comes from growing up in a family of athletes and competing with his siblings. As for Brady, his chip came from competing for minutes, not playing up ages in the academy and going on loan to start his pro career.
Gutiérrez attributed that drive and self-belief as the biggest keys to making it to the first team from the academy.
“If you don’t believe in yourself then nobody else will,” he said. “Saying that I can make it and having that confidence that you could do that on the pitch. Believing in yourself and having that competitive drive, that hunger. Always having that hunger that you had when you were little and that love for the game that brought you here.”
To go with starting spots, both players left the 2023 season with team awards. Brady, who finished the season with eight clean sheets, was named the Fire’s Defender of the Year. Gutiérrez took home team MVP honors after leading the Fire with nine assists.
“It was an honor to hear that,” Brady said. “With awards, it shows how others perceive you. It just made me smile that people felt like I was one of the defenders who contributed a lot to this team. As a young kid, that’s where you want to be. You want to end up as someone who’s reliable.”
Brady has two clean sheets this season, and Gutiérrez is tied for second on the team in scoring with four goals and two assists in 19 games. Their success shows the combination of their talent mixed with the Fire’s emphasis on the academy and the importance it holds to the club.
“We put a lot of resources in the academy as far as bringing in top-level technical directors and coaches,” Klopas said. “We have a big market in Chicago. There’s a lot of talent.
“Our goal, from the owner’s standpoint, from Joe (Mansueto), is really to give the kids here in Chicago an opportunity to reach their dreams, whatever that might be. Some might be to one day reach and play for the first team. Others might be to use soccer to get an education and pursue other things.”
The chance for academy players to work their way onto the first team is an opportunity Klopas makes ever-present through the season.
“We have a very good relationship with our second team,” he said. “Throughout the week we bring different players up (for practice) all the time. It’s important that they already get a feel and taste for the environment. Our training methods and principles of play have to be aligned so the transition is easier. We see how they do, and if they do well we keep bringing them back.
“I think it makes them work harder seeing that (the first team) is that close. In the end it’s really up to them. You provide the tools and create the environment, then it’s about their ability on the pitch. They need confidence and time and we allow that, but they have to show progression.”
Adam Bakr is a freelance reporter for the Chicago Tribune.
