It’s a half hour before kickoff and I call Paul Cadwell:
“How you doing, Caddy?”
“Pacing, mate. I just got home, and I’m just counting down until kickoff now. First home opener I’ve ever missed. I’m gutted. I get that it’s necessary staff, but I’d have loved to be at this one… Just want a win now.”
“Yeah, it’s surreal to not be there. Tonight, though…they pack in deep, Cincy... Early goal would be nice.”
“I’d love it. Settle us. Make them come out. Get at them...”
We sign off in hopes of celebrating a win at our morning meeting and I leave Paul to his pacing. He is an institution at the Club. While most fans will know about, say, Frank Klopas’ long history with the Club, “Caddy” is another figure who’s been there from the start, fulfilling multiple roles around the Fire over the years, before evolving into a role that could have been made for him, as Senior Vice President of Football in the Neighborhoods. You’ll hear more about the work of FITN in the months and years to come, but suffice to say, if it's connected to how the Fire engage with the broader Chicago community, from the Fire Foundation’s award-winning PLAYS program, to the Fire Pitch, to the Juniors, then it’s now united under a single department headed up by this longstanding Club servant, who loves this Club and this city, like few others.
So when the early goal does indeed go in, after a VAR delay to keep the occasion on-brand for 2020’s frustrations, I think of Paul, and other Club veterans, and I think of everyone around the city who was supposed to be with us at Soldier Field for our home opener, for whom the occasion would have meant so much. Amid the joy and relief of the team getting a strong start, there is a sadness about not being able to hear the person to the right and left of you giving full-throated voice to their celebrations — especially those who carry every kick of this Club’s history inside them.
If there’s a consolation though, it’s that if you were to choose a venue to silently host and witness history, you could do a lot worse than Soldier Field, Chicago. The venue first conceived of not only as a monument, but as a “playground of the people” has witnessed so many iconic moments, including the Fire’s, and occupies such a symbolic place in Chicago folk history that — even empty — it’s teeming with presence.
I’ve thought a lot this past week about Eduardo Galeano’s evocative description of empty stadiums in “Football in Sun and Shadow”, as I imagined what this game would feel like:
“Have you ever entered an empty stadium? Try it. Stand in the middle of the field and listen. There is nothing less empty than an empty stadium. There is nothing less mute than stands bereft of spectators.
At Wembley, shouts from the 1966 World Cup, which England won, still resound, and if you listen very closely you can hear groans from 1953 when England fell to the Hungarians. Montevideo’s Centenario Stadium sighs with nostalgia for the glory days of Uruguayan soccer. Maracanã is still crying over Brazil’s 1950 World Cup defeat. At Bombonera in Buenos Aires, drums boom from half a century ago. From the depths of Azteca Stadium, you can hear the ceremonial chants of the ancient Mexican ball game. The concrete terraces of Camp Nou in Barcelona speak Catalan, and the stands of San Mamés in Bilbao talk in Basque. In Milan, the ghosts of Giuseppe Meazza scores goals that shake the stadium bearing his name. The final match of the 1974 World Cup, won by Germany, is played day after day and night after night at Munich’s Olympic Stadium. King Fahd Stadium in Saudi Arabia has marble and gold boxes and carpeted stands, but it has no memory or much of anything to say.
In that spirit, Soldier Field has plenty to say, even if we aren’t there in person to hear it. Watching the game, it felt more real for the sense of place, for the feeling that the memories added on Tuesday night will be there for us when we finally get to celebrate together — written into the turf and surrounds of our storied stadium. They’ll be in good company — mingling with other moments saved in one of the great cultural archives of American life, alongside Klopas’ ’98 opener, golden goals, the ‘85 Bears, the Dempsey-Tunney “long count”, Army-Navy classics, World Cup openers, Gold Cup finals and even the odd great tractor pull. They all criss-cross the turf in a clamor of memories of Chicagoans at play.
Let’s add to those memories the precise Giménez pass for Herbers' inch-perfect run and volley, Medran’s sizzling strike from distance, and the beautiful team move that ended with Aliseda’s first goal for the Club. More folk lore for the Club and the city, on a night so many people have worked so hard for.
And if we couldn’t all be there to appreciate it in person, we confirmed our home is waiting for us, with new stories to tell us about the night we “should have been there." We’ll have our day together, but Tuesday night was the perfect reminder of what we miss so much and why it matters to us all.
