It’s not every day you can bump into Ante Razov, Hristo Stoitchkov, Zach Thornton, Lubos Kubik, Peter Nowak and Frank Klopas all within the matter of about five minutes, but that’s exactly what happened to me at Monday’s 15th Fire Anniversary Celebration.
In all, the alumni in attendance along with the current players in the room combined for 3,569 competitive games and 64 championships for the club.
The names above were just a smattering of the nearly 20 Fire alumni that returned for the special occasion. Rubbing elbows with all the dignitaries in the room gave way to perhaps the most important part of the night where Fire a number of the guests in attendance spoke to the Tradition, Honor and Passion of the club and worked to inspire the current roster for greater things to come.
Rousing numbers were given by Jesse Marsch, Hristo Stoitchkov (with great translation from Denis Hamlett), Peter Wilt, Brian McBride, Diego Gutierrez, Peter Nowak, Julian Posada, Frank Klopas and Chris Armas.
It was the last two who perhaps had the most touching moments.
A hometown guy, Klopas pointed to the teams and people that laid the groundwork for soccer in the city of Chicago ahead of the Fire before drawing attention back to the special accomplishments of the inaugural 1998 double-winning team that he was a part of, saying “This group of guys was special and I see many similarities between them and the guys we have right now. We aspire to great things and that means bringing another championship back to this city.”
Finishing up the proceedings, Armas looked to the alumni to his right then pointed to the current roster and simply said, “All of us assembled here are behind you. Go and win a championship.”
What a night indeed.
Kudos to Section 8 Chicago and specifically the 15th Anniversary Committee for pulling together a night no one in the Fire family will soon forget. Check out select photos below...
