MLS Season Preview: Chicago Fire

With the MLS season set to begin on Friday, theScore runs down everything you need to know about each team heading into the league's 20th campaign. Here, we take a look at the Chicago Fire.

Frank Yallop's first year in charge at Toyota Park was a frustrating one, to say the least.

The Fire stumbled to a ninth-place finish in the Eastern Conference, thanks largely to an astounding 18 draws - the most by any team in single season in MLS history. Not surprisingly, Yallop overhauled the roster in the offseason, making 28 changes in total in the hopes of turning those draws into victories.

The bulk of the transformation came in attack, with Yallop pillaging the Swedish first division to bring in two exciting strikers whom he hopes will make last season a distant memory very quickly in the Windy City.

With so many new faces it will take time for the team to gel, but there's no question the intriguing additions, along with the retention of proven talents such as Harrison Shipp, will give a fan base that has seen just one playoff berth in the last five seasons something to cheer about in 2015.

If not wins, at the very least goals.

2014 season: 9th in Eastern Conference

Playoffs: Did not qualify

Head coach: Frank Yallop

Stadium: Toyota Park

Season Opener: Friday, March 6: LA Galaxy vs. Chicago Fire (StubHub Centre) - 10 PM EST

Key Arrivals

Kennedy Igboananike (AIK Stockholm,), David Accam (Helsingborgs), Adailton (Bahia), Shaun Maloney (Wigan), Eric Gehrig (Orlando City), Michael Stephens (free transfer), Matt Polster (SuperDraft)

Key Departures

Bakary Soumare (Montreal Impact), Juan Luis Anangono (Universidad de Guadalajara), Gonzalo Segares (option declined), Patrick Ianni (option declined)

Player to Watch: David Accam

Much is expected of the 24-year-old Ghanaian international, who joins the club after netting 30 goals in 62 appearances over three seasons with Swedish side Helsingborgs.

A product of the Nike Football Academy, Accam will be expected to lead a new crop of attackers that includes fellow designated players Kennedy Igboananike and veteran Shaun Maloney, the 32-year-old Scottish international who chose MLS after spending four years with Wigan.

After the club's profligate season in front of goal last year, the changes hardly come as a surprise. Chicago scored only 41 goals in 2014, and Harrison Shipp, who was one of the few players on the team to draw any plaudits after a stellar rookie campaign, has an explanation for the low tally.

"For me personally, I think last year we struggled because we didn’t have a lot of guys that had the same philosophy in terms of attacking," the 23-year-old said. "It was kind of all over the place.

"But this year we’ve gotten guys like Shaun, we’ve got guys that play similarly, so for me I love that. They think similarly to I do so I kind of know where people like that are going to be on the field, so hopefully we’ll get a chance to play together and hopefully we can make good things happen going forward."

That's certainly the expectation.

Keep an eye on: Kennedy Igboananike

Projected Starting XI

(4-2-2-2) Sean Johnson; Joevin Jones, Jeff Larentowicz, Adailton, Lovel Palmer; Matt Watson, Razvan Cocis; Harrison Shipp, Shaun Maloney; David Accam, Kennedy Igboananike

Season in a Sentence

After a flurry of offseason moves, Chicago went from having one of the most underwhelming squads in the league to one rife with intriguing, if unproven, talent that will have Frank Yallop expecting to get the Fire into the playoffs for only the second time in the last six years.