Preseason Winding Down (Rookie Life Preview)

The Chicago Fire will be kicking off their season in less than two weeks and the final roster has still not been set. The team will play UC-Irvine today at 4pm PT giving the second team, the trailists and the rookies a shot at some much needed playing time. David Sias, Richard Jata, Andrew Dykstra and Austin Washington should all play a considerable amount, with hopes of increasing their current stock. I'm looking for Jata, to come out and impress after missing the last two games with the flu. He's been patiently waiting for his chance to shine and I believe that the time is now. His fitness level has been growing and growing since the start of training camp, and just recently, he ran the two mile in under 12 minutes. Chris Rolfe has been out sick, Busch and Thorrington are nursing injuries and Peter Lowry is back in Chicago, possibly doing rehab as well. With that being said, the starting lineup for tomorrow should look something like this:

GK Andrew Dykstra, D Austin Washington, D C.J. Brown, D David Sias, D Daniel Woolard, M Marco Pappa, M Richard Jata, M Baggio Husidic, M Mike Banner, F Stefan Dimitrov, F Cuauhtemoc Blanco

Rookie Life: Diary of a Draft Pick - (Preview)

A brief video specifically made to follow MLS rookies through their first season. Richard Jata appears at the 25 second mark and he speaks again at the 52 second mark. Also appearing in the video is Jean Alexandre, Sam Cronin, AJ Delegarza, Stefan Frei, Omar Gonzalez, Chris Pontius and Steve Zakuani. Still more to come....

The team will be leaving LA for Arizona on Wednesday(3/11) in preparation for their final preseason game vs. LA Galaxy. Training prior to the game, will be done at Arizona State University. The match is set to take place on March 14th(7pm MT) at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona.