FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – There was a time when Saturday night’s meeting between the New England Revolution and Chicago Fire would’ve been the marquee match-up of MLS Heineken Rivalry Week.
There’s little doubt that the animosity between these clubs has faded over the years – so much so that the Revs-Fire showdown isn’t technically included as a Rivalry Week contest – but there remains a large swath of Revolution fans who, to this day, consider Chicago to be New England’s fiercest enemy.
It was a rivalry bred not through marketing gimmicks, clever nicknames, or regional proximity. No, the hostility between the Revolution and Fire was real, stoked by years of shared Eastern Conference dominance, a plethora of playoff matches, and the kind of intrinsic bad blood you can’t manufacture.