Put 'er there! 🤝🍻
Welcome to Handshakes with Gregg, a Chicago Fire FC newsletter!
The Praire Fire - Alvan Fisher c 1827 (The Art Institute of Chicago)
1. What’s going on!
Howdy y’all, I’ll keep this brief (maybe). Handshakes with Gregg is a Chicago Fire FC Newsletter writen by me, Johnny!
I’ve written quite a bit about soccer in the past whether that was for Fotmob, Real Salt Lake/Utah Royals, Copa America, The Premier League, etc. and to be honest, I’ve missed it terribly.
Since I moved from Salt Lake City back to Chicago, I’ve still been working in ⚽️ but stopped writing about it almost completely. While writing about the beautiful game is no longer what pays the ole bills, I’ve been going stir crazy without it. The start of the MLS season offered the perfect time to get back to it. In other words:
We’re so back.
But enough about me!
What an exciting time it is to be a Chicago Fire FC fan: Gregg Berhalter’s inagural season as manager and director of football has just begun, there’s exciting news about a potential new stadium on the horizon, new signing Jonathan Bamba seems like a homerun, and spring is in the air!
Just to set things straight, I won’t pretend I’ve followed the Fire closely in the past, but I’m very much looking forward to watching and analyzing the team this season. Hopefully my outside perspective can provide a little something new and I look forward to analyzing and covering this new era of the club alongside you.
(Back to me)
My first ever job in soccer was fresh out of college as a communications intern at the Chicago Red Stars (which they’ll always be to me).
My boss, the wonderful Joe Azar, took me to Hook and Ladder after one particularly long gameday and decided it was time to give me a real Chicago welcome. Next thing I know, I’ve got this burning, musky, gross sensation flying down my throat and a cold Old Style waiting to chase it back. All I hear and feel is a “welcome home, man,” and an arm around the shoulder as my face slowly returned from its involuntary scrunch.
Desperate to feel like I belonged in this huge metropolis that was five times bigger than anywhere I’d previously lived (Omaha & Lincoln), I decided to co-opt the classic Chicago Handshake, as plenty of postgrads who move to Chicago do. “You’ve never heard of a Chicago Handshake?? Let me show you how we do it here in Chicago - me probably (yikes), 6 months after moving to Lakeview at 22-years-old, to one of my visiting Cornhusker pals.
Now, Chicago is home again. I’ve lived here three seperate times since those nights at Hook and Ladder. My beloved White Sox have gone from being terrible, to being oh-so-fun and competitive, to being somehow even worse than the first time in that span. I’ve also grown (I hope) to being a much better writer and drinking partner than the one Joe had to edit and put up with all those years ago. In a funny way, this really does feel a bit full circle.
2. What to expect!
Weekly to bi-weekly anaysis of the happenings in Fire land. Probably most of the them will be pretty similar to this (link coming soon). The world is most certainly in need of another podcast hosted by a 20 something white man as well, and at some point that should be arriving too.
3. What the hell!
The first real post of Handshakes with Gregg should already be posted by the time you read this. I’ll end this little intro post with a big thank you for reading and a big congrats for making it this far. Looking forward to following the Fire with you all season long.
Cheers 🍻
Johnny