Chivas leaders evaluate breakout season’s end
These are difficult days for Antonio Cue.
The bitterness left by Chivas USA’s ouster from the Major League Soccer playoffs is taking its time to dissipate and Cue, who owns the team with Jorge Vergara, is feeling the frustration.
“Last year we didn’t build a foundation, we dug a deeper hole,” said Cue, whose team finished last in the league with a 4-22-6 record in its inaugural season but improved dramatically to go 10-9-13 this season.
“Last year, when I was invited to MLS Cup at the end of my first season as an owner, I felt very embarrassed. It was very tough seeing all the other owners. We had high expectations and we didn’t deliver. It was a bad weekend for me.”
Next Sunday, MLS again plays its championship match in Frisco, Texas, and Cue will be there, but this time in better spirits. No team in the league accomplished the sort of turnaround that Chivas did in 2006.
“We made the right decision,” Cue said of hiring Bob Bradley as coach one year ago. “We have a lot to do in this off-season, but this team now has respect from everybody else. I’m proud of that and very excited about next year.
“But I still have two more weeks of frustration because it doesn’t go away just like that. We had a good chance at [winning] the championship this year.”
The first-round playoff ouster by the Houston Dynamo still rankles. Chivas was 35 minutes from making it into today’s conference final when everything crumbled.
Player changes are certain before the 2007 season begins in April, but there is another possible shake-up that Cue has no control over. If, in the next few weeks, U.S. Soccer selects Bradley as the national team coach -- or even if he becomes an assistant to whoever is chosen -- it will be a body blow to Chivas.
Cue tried to put a positive spin on the possibility.
“If I lose Bob, it’s for a good reason,” he said. “First, because I think he deserves it. Second, because I think it’s good for the U.S. And at the end, I want this country to succeed in soccer because that gives everybody in MLS a great chance.”
For the time being, Cue and Bradley are focused on rebuilding.
“When the season ends, there’s this short period where everybody now has to step back, and where the players need to reflect a little bit,” Bradley said.
One starter almost certain not to return is midfielder Juan Pablo Garcia, the team’s second-leading goal soccer behind Ante Razov.
“He is close to signing a deal with a European team “ Cue said. “He’s young. He wants to have that opportunity. He has all my support.”
Apart from Garcia, the starters all are likely to return, unless one is lost in the Nov. 17 expansion draft to stock the Toronto team. For others, including veterans Ramon Ramirez, John O’Brien Carlos Llamosa who were injured for all or most of the season, the future is problematic.
Lack of talent on the bench hurt Chivas in 2006.
“I think depth was one of the things that came into play throughout the season,” Bradley said. “The building of a really good roster that can hold up over the course of a season takes time.”
