“What is noticeable, immediately, is how little everyone is paying attention. They talk among themselves, rarely about the football, or they look at their phones. Midway through the first half, on the big screen behind the goal at the south end, there is an advertisement, broadcast over the PA system, for a lease-to-own furniture retailer. It is hard to decide what is more troubling: the advert itself or the fact that such an unrecognisable brand was able to buy it.”

In Episode Thirty, we look at Jake Walerius’s 'Fading Embers' from the recently released Issue Twenty. While the rest of MLS booming, what’s gone wrong for the Chicago Fire? Is it all down to meddling owner Andrew Hauptman?

The article also assesses how the MLS boom plays into the cultural landscape of American sports in general. The overall success of the league will have much to do with how MLS confronts the tensions between a burgeoning family-led audience and the influence of global football culture and a more knowledgeable fanbase.

Jake Walerius is a football writer based in Chicago. He writes a weekly column for the Sports Quotient and is working on a book about football culture in the US. Twitter: @JakeWalerius.

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