Fans Can Get Taste of the Chivas Flavor
The striped goats of Guadalajara will be in town today, and it’s only a few months before the striped goats of Carson will be here too.
Chivas Rayadas de Guadalajara will play three-time world champion Boca Juniors of Argentina at the Coliseum at 4 p.m. in the first half of a doubleheader that also features the national teams of El Salvador and Guatemala.
Attractive as the second game might appear, it’s the first match that should be of interest to Los Angeles area fans because it will give them the opportunity to scout Guadalajara’s veteran Mexican international Ramon Ramirez.
Ramirez and Chivas teammate Francisco Palencia have agreed to join Major League Soccer next season and to play for Chivas USA at the Home Depot Center. Both players are in their 30s -- Ramirez is 34 and Palencia 31 -- but according to Chivas Coach Benjamin Galindo, himself a former national team player, they still have a lot to offer.
“They are both great players, with much experience and charisma,” Galindo said, adding that he will find it difficult to replace them at the end of the upcoming Mexican season.
A third Chivas player, 24-year-old forward Miguel Sabah, apparently has declined an offer to join Chivas USA, which will begin play in MLS in 2005.
Palencia, meanwhile, will not be at the Coliseum today because he will be playing for Mexico against Brazil in the quarterfinals of the Copa America at Arequipa, Peru.
Chivas also will be without goalkeeper Adolfo Sanchez, defender Salvador Carmona and forward Adolfo Bautista for this afternoon’s match. All three are with Mexico’s national team.
Boca Juniors, which finished second behind River Plate in the recently concluded Argentine championship and also finished second to Once Caldas of Colombia in the Copa Libertadores, will be under new Coach Miguel Angel Brindisi, who took charge July 5 after Carlos Bianchi resigned.
Brindisi’s team today will be missing goalkeeper Roberto Abbondanzieri, defender Clemente Rodriguez and forward Carlos Tevez. All three are with Argentina’s national team, which defeated Peru, 1-0, in the Copa America quarterfinals Saturday on a goal by Tevez.
It will also be without promising 23-year-old defender Nicolas Burdisso, who was signed July 7 by Inter Milan.
After today’s match, Chivas will travel to Denver to play Boca Juniors on Wednesday.
Chivas, whose owner Jorge Vergara is intent on breaking into the American market, will also play at Chicago on Aug. 4 and at Dallas on Aug. 7.
*
Don Garber, the commissioner of MLS, apparently sees Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City being filled by missionaries now that the league has decided to place a team there next season.
“If you know anything about Salt Lake City you know there are lots and lots of people who spend a couple of years of their lives overseas at a very influential time of their lives,” Garber said.
“If you leave this country and go any place in the world, you’re going to go to a place where soccer is dominant. And in my travels here [to Utah] it’s amazing to me how many young adults come up to me and say, ‘I came back from a mission in Portugal and I’m a huge fan. I tuned in to Euro 2004 tournament and I can’t wait for the new team to come to Salt Lake City.’
“That’s something that people shouldn’t underestimate and that we should be able to capitalize on.”
Straw-clutching as a sport thrives at MLS headquarters.
*
The messenger is being blamed for the message once again. It happened at Euro 2004 in Portugal last month and it’s happening at the Copa America in Peru this month.
Coaches are increasingly blaming the media for their ouster, and even a couple of former U.S. national team coaches -- Bora Milutinovic of Honduras and Steve Sampson of Costa Rica -- have taken up the cudgels against the press.
It is a high-wire act that international coaches perform, usually under intense scrutiny and amid immense criticism. One slip and they’re toppled.
Even a tie can bring about the fall, as Sampson found out when a 1-1 World Cup qualifying draw with Cuba cost him his job.
“I thought this might happen,” he said. “The circumstances of having fans and the press against me influenced the decision.
“The detonator was the result against Cuba.”
Milutinovic, always one step ahead, jumped before he was pushed.
“The atmosphere created with the commentaries and declarations of coaches, directors and the Honduran media is not favorable for me to do my job,” he said in a written statement that accompanied his resignation after only 11 months.
The pressure on Milutinovic came not only from fans and the media but also from the Catholic church, which called his reported salary of between $30,000 and $60,000 a month an insult to the country’s poor.
*
If Sampson and Milutinovic thought they had it rough, it was nothing compared to the treatment accorded the Netherlands’ Dick Advocaat, who quit as Dutch coach after Euro 2004.
“I know that in my job there is always criticism and I accept that,” he said. “But some people violated every rule of decent behavior without realizing what their pronouncements meant to people back home. It all went much too far.
“When people talk about stoning and hanging you, I don’t find that normal any more. In such an atmosphere you can hardly work any more.”
Also hounded out of his post after Euro 2004 was Spain’s coach, Inaki Saez, who had won the European Under-21 Championship in 1998, the FIFA World Youth Championship in 1999 and the silver medal at the Sydney 2000 Olympics.
That counted for nothing when Saez failed at Euro 2004, where a 1-0 loss to neighboring Portugal brought about his downfall amid a barrage of critical comment in the media.
“All of us in the football world have to accept criticism ... but what we should not accept is a lynching,” Angel Maria Villar, president of the Spanish federation, said in defending Saez.
Mexico Coach Ricardo Lavolpe also slammed the media last week, telling a news conference in Peru that “70% of journalists are really very bad” and threatening to resign.
“It’s results, results, results,” he said. “Results are what determines the life of a coach.”
When Ecuador was thrashed, 6-1, by Argentina in the Copa America, Ecuador’s Colombian coach, Hernan Dario Gomez, said the same thing.
“This was a coach-devouring result,” he said.
For the moment, however, Gomez has not been devoured.
