Fire's Thorrington says club learned from its growing pains

Did the Fire players have a hard time adjusting to new coach Carlos de los Cobos during the 2010 season?

“I think you could make that argument, yeah,” veteran midfielder John Thorrington said Thursday. “Anytime you have a new coach, it takes a while.

“As much as people would like change, it doesn't happen overnight. It often takes time, and the organization is committed to building a winning team, so they're going to put the players and coaches out there that give them the best chance. I think there will be quite a few changes, and hopefully we'll reap the rewards of that next year.”

The Fire struggled in its first year under de los Cobos, failing to make the playoffs for only the second time in its 13-season history, just a year after reaching the conference championship match.

“This year was a growing process,” Thorrington said. “I'm a firm believer that there's no such thing as failure if you learn from it. So this season in hindsight might just turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to this organziation if we fix the things that were wrong and get this moving back in the right direction.”

The Fire wrapped up postseason training Thursday before heading into the off-season. Thorrington, who missed much of the season due to injury, used training to catch up.

“I'm fine now,” he said. “This three weeks gave me a chance to just be physically well and be free from the day-to-day demands of playing games, etc. So it was nice for me just to get out here and for three weeks just to feel healthy for a lengthier period of time.”

Will Thorrington be back next year?

“I would like nothing more than to be here and help turn this back around and get it back to where it has been and where it should be,” he said.

A busy off-season begins:

The newest face in the Fire front office is Mike Jeffries, and the team's director of player personnel is busy preparing for next week's expansion draft and scouting for new players.

The Fire gets to protect 11 players from the Vancouver Whitecaps and Portland Timbers. The list is due Monday for Wednesday's draft.

“We're still obviously finalizing it, going through it a little bit, trying to figure out which guys make sense for us to protect,” Jeffries said.

Jeffries was in South America last week looking for new players; this week technical director Frank Klopas and coach Carlos de los Cobos were in Europe on the same mission.

Jeffries likes the moves MLS commissioner Don Garber announced this week, including a roster expanded to 30 players from 24 as well as the return of a reserve league.

“We all feel like those are needed steps,” Jeffries said. “A reserve league is very important, especially as teams start adding more home-grown players and more young players. Making sure those guys are able to get games is going to be vital. That's a huge step.

“The expanded rosters are a reflection of the fact that the schedule is really long with a lot of additional games that teams play, whether it's exhibitions or Open Cup or some of the international tournaments, and that it's very difficult with the roster we had.”

With the two new teams next year, each MLS team will play 34 regular-season games, up from 30.

Cap space:

One player the Fire won't sign is U.S. World Cup veteran Jay DeMerit, who played collegiately at UIC. The central defender signed Thursday with Vancouver.

Seeing Red:

The news isn't quite as bad as it sounds, Red Stars lead investor Arnim Whisler said Thursday.

The Red Stars announced Tuesday that Women's Professional Soccer had granted the team an extension to find more investors in order to remain in the league. The team has until Dec. 15, and Whisler is cautiously optimistic the team's seven investors will find “a few more broad shoulders” to join them.

“The league would not have granted an extension had we been flat-footed and had no chance of closing,” Whisler said Thursday just before a conference call with the club's players to discuss the situation. “We are optimistic, but if the key deal we're hoping to close falls apart, it leaves us with a key hole we have to close fast.”

Whisler said the timing has never been better to join WPS, even though 2010 champion FC Gold Pride just disbanded, leaving the league with just seven clubs, including Chicago. The league's financial situation has improved during the two seasons it has existed, he said, and he expects the losses to drop “dramatically” next year.

The league could break even in 2012, Whisler said. More teams are looking to join the league, with a chance WPS could soon have 10-12 clubs.

Our Cup overfloweth:

The U.S. women's national team expected to have its spot in next year's Women's World Cup sewn up by now. Instead it needs to win a two-game series with Italy or be shut out of the Cup for the first time.

Game 1 is in Italy on Saturday (9:30 a.m., ESPN3.com). Game 2 is at 1 p.m. Nov. 27 at Toyota Park in Bridgeview. The roster includes Red Stars Megan Rapinoe and Jillian Loyden.

Tickets start at $10 and are available at ussoccer.com or by calling (800) 745-3000.