BRIDGEVIEW, Ill. -- From the start of the 2008 season, the Chicago Fire had a lot to deal with.
They had a new head coach in Denis Hamlett, who was a familiar face from many years of working as an assistant coach but who still had to install his own system.
They had a new goalkeeper in veteran Jon Busch, who had spent one season as a backup to young Matt Pickens.
Eventually, they found three new defenders on a four-man back line, with Bakary Soumare moving back from holding midfielder to center back and Brandon Prideaux moving in from the waiver wire to a starting job on the right side.
At midseason, they had to readjust their offensive attack with the addition of superstar Brian McBride and the departure of Chad Barrett.
Through it all, they forged a 13-10-7 regular season record and advanced to the Eastern Conference Championship, where they fell to the Columbus Crew 2-1 after being the only team in the league the Crew did not defeat at least once in the regular season.
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SIGHTS & SOUNDS
"We felt we were very close to getting to the final," Hamlett said in retrospect. "We had a good enough team. We felt we could win it, and we were disappointed not to get there. But I am still very proud of the accomplishments we had this year, getting to the conference final and losing to the best team in terms of consistency over the year. As a group, throughout the year, we were a very competitive team and played entertaining soccer."
That's especially true if you enjoy defensive soccer. The Fire led the league in goals against for much of the season (Until giving up two goals in each of the last three games). It was not until the eighth game of the season that they gave up more than one goal in a game, and they had a stretch in July in which they gave up three goals total in seven games.
"We put some new faces in there, but it came together very quickly, and a lot of times it doesn't happen as quickly as it did for us this year," said Busch, who was a finalist for MLS Goalkeeper of the Year honors. "That is a credit to the coaching staff, and to the players for being able to learn and adapt, and become a cohesive unit as quick as possible."
Offensively, there were struggles, but they were more in identifying the best possible combination of talent. Initially, Hamlett went with winter signing Tomasz Frankowski along with veteran Barrett in attack, but he gave starts to Calen Carr (who was injured before midseason), rookie Patrick Nyarko and Andy Herron. Chris Rolfe also played some at forward before settling into an attacking midfielder role.
The forward spot become cemented once Brian McBride joined the club after a successful stint in the English Premier League. Barrett was sent to Toronto to complete the transaction, and McBride and Cuauhtemoc Blanco ended up being listed at forward for most of the final games on the schedule.
"Brian came over and he is a fantastic guy and a great player, but I don't know what people were expecting, that all of a sudden, boom, he shows up and we are automatic champions," Busch said. "That doesn't happen. But it did make us more dangerous offensively. It gave us an avenue to play long balls up to the target forward, which we hadn't had before. You can hit long balls up to him and he can bring them down or flick them on. It made us more creative going forward, with more options."
The Fire finished with 44 goals in 30 games, the fifth-best total in the league. Rolfe finished with nine goals, Blanco had seven and McBride and midfielder John Thorrington had five each.
But Hamlett admitted his club did have difficulty when asked to come from behind.
"Coming from behind, we didn't have such a good record," Hamlett said. "That is something that was evident throughout the year. That comes with experience and maturity. It is still a process."
There were some remarkable high points, including a 5-1 win at New York on May 25 and a 3-0 record against the hated New England Revolution, including nine goals scored, a pair of wins at Gillette Stadium, and a 4-0 win in the second game of the season that put the league on notice.
The Fire did not lose consecutive games until June, but twice had winless streaks of three games. Pundits complained the Fire lacked consistency, an attack Hamlett has read and totally disagrees with.
The Fire opened the season with six wins in their first nine games, but then won just once over their next eight, a two-month span. Then after a stretch of four wins in six contests following the All-Star break, Chicago limped down the stretch, winning just twice in their final seven games while allowing nearly half of all of the goals they conceded on the season (15 of 33).
"We finished third in the league in points, and if you base it on that, we weren't too far off," Hamlett said. "Overall, I don't think it was an inconsistent year.
"We showed flashes of being a very good team," he said. "I think overall, when you step back and do a self-evaluation, I think there were more positives than negatives."
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