Win wraps up Fire's trip to England

The Chicago Fire defeated a squad from Queens Park Rangers 1-0 on a Quincy Amarikwa goal in a preseason friendly Thursday in England.

The match wrapped up the first leg of preseason training for the Fire, which returns to Chicago on Friday after 10 days overseas.

"For sure it's fitness and getting up to soccer speed, if you like, making sure guys will be ready to play 90 minutes when asked. That was the main thing about this," Fire coach and director of soccer Frank Yallop said. "Then we looked at a couple of guys who we brought in (on trial). They got 45 minutes today, a couple of them in our first group."

After a week in Chicago, the Fire will travel to Portland, Oregon, for the final phase of preseason training.

"We're honing down the system and the philosophy," Yallop said. "It's been great. We're playing at a really high level, we're tough to break down and beat. We played two games against two pretty good sides, and I know it's early and you probably heard me say the same thing last year, but we're making teams earn their chances, which is important right now."