(WBBM NEWSRADIO) – David versus Goliath may best describe the soccer matchup Wednesday between amateur team Chicago House Athletic Club and the Chicago Fire Football Club in south suburban Bridgeview.
Chicago House AC earned the opportunity by steamrolling through qualifying rounds last year and more recently going 2-0 in the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup, which pits professional and amateur teams across all levels.
“It’s Go time,” team captain A.R. Smith says of Round 3. “That’s what I tell everybody. I tell them, don’t stress. If anything, what I’m preaching at practice is to enjoy it. Enjoy the moment. There’s a reason that we’re here.”
Head Coach Matt Poland agrees about the exciting prospect of taking on Chicago’s Major League Soccer team.
“We get 90 minutes to celebrate what we’ve accomplished,” he says. “We get 90 minutes to showcase our club identity to our fans, what our fans mean to us, what the city means to us. Ninety minutes of fight, of heart, of effort. What do we have to be scared of?”
It’s all heady stuff for the fifth-tier Chicago House AC, which began as a professional concern in 2019 before the pandemic. After a restructuring, the Midwest Premier League member has become known as a scrappy team that offers zero in the way of salary and perks, but so much more in the way of soccer intensity and opportunity.
“We train four days a week, sometimes five days a week,” says co-owner Peter Wilt, a veteran of the sport. “There’s no other amateur team in the country that does that.”
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“Most train two times a week, in the evenings, it’s optional if you come, and then there’s a game on the weekend,” Coach Poland adds. “And I was like, no, we’re going to train in the morning like a professional team … We’re going to train four or five times a week as we build up for games, all of those things. And if you’re late, if you miss training, you’re not going to be in the starting lineup.”
And yet the players, many from the Chicago area, buy in, hoping to follow a newly worn path to the pros. With reason: Nine of the 22 players on the House squad that worked its way into the US Open Cup last December have since signed professional contracts. Half the roster has turned over, but they’re still winning.
There’s not much in the way of material rewards. After Chicago House AC’s win over Brockton United FC in Massachusetts last December, the team had champagne to celebrate their entry into the U.S. Open Cup.
As for a showering facility, well, that was another matter.
The team improvised at a nearby Planet Fitness, with a creative application of the one-day free memberships the gym was offering.
“They were kind enough, they understood why we were doing it, and all credit to Planet Fitness for allowing us to take the showers,” co-owner Wilt says.
Chicago House AC will get better accommodations this week at Seatgeek Stadium in Bridgeview. But what about a victory against the big-dog Fire?
“What are you going to say?” Poland muses. “They have players like [Xherdan] Shaqiri that played in the last two World Cups, and we have guys that have just graduated from Division III and NAIA schools. So clearly, it’s a much different operation that we’re running. But I think that’s the beauty of the Open Cup.”
“Everybody puts their boots on the same way,” captain Smith says. “Everybody puts their shorts on the same way, and the game starts 0-0, and it’s 90 minutes. That’s it. There’s no fear. If there’s fear, we stay at home.”
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