It’s a New Beginning for Chivas
Bob Bradley’s assignment was clear: Turn Chivas USA around and do it right away.
Now, only days from the Major League Soccer team’s 2006 opener Sunday afternoon against Real Salt Lake at the Home Depot Center, Chivas USA looks, feels and, indeed, is a much different team from the one that stumbled to a league-worst 4-22-6 record last season.
It’s not just that the coaches and players have changed, but that the attitude has undergone a transformation. There is a newfound confidence about the team that suggests it will not be the pushover it was in its first season.
Bradley, who became Chivas USA’s coach in November after eight years in the league with the Chicago Fire and the MetroStars, first revamped the coaching staff, retaining Martin Vasquez and hiring two-time league most valuable player Preki and former Galaxy goalkeeper coach Zak Abdel.
Next came the roster changes, the most significant of which were the addition of veteran defenders Carlos Llamosa and Claudio Suarez, as well as two of Bradley’s former Fire players, midfielder Jesse Marsch and forward Ante Razov, and Mexico under-20 international winger Jesus Padilla, expected to be signed by Saturday.
Bradley also managed to get the best of the 2005 team to stick around, so Chivas USA still will feature the likes of Ramon Ramirez, Francisco “Paco” Palencia, Juan Pablo Garcia, Francisco Mendoza, Brad Guzan, Antonio Martinez and Ezra Hendrickson.
So what will fans see in 2006?
“I think they can expect the same kind of passion and excitement that they saw last year,” Bradley said, “but I think there’s a better understanding from the top of the organization to the bottom of the organization of what it takes to be successful.”
Being entertaining is no longer enough.
“Clearly, there’s a mentality now that this year we must find a way to be a more balanced team, a more complete team, we must compete at a higher level and we must win,” Bradley said.
When Chivas USA was founded, it was seen as an offshoot of Chivas de Guadalajara, wearing the same vertical red and white striped colors and having the same Mexican identity.
That, too, has undergone a subtle change, but Bradley rejects the notion that the team has strayed from its roots.
“I think the name says everything,” he said. “It’s Chivas USA. Chivas comes first because of its tradition and passion. That’s what we want to be all about. But again, now, it’s USA. It has to be successful here in the United States. It has to be a little bit different than Chivas de Guadalajara.
“If somebody wants to be critical and say, ‘Ah, the team’s not as Latino as it was at the beginning,’ well, I think they’re missing the point. I think the point is that we’ve got to be Chivas USA. We have to pull all the communities together. It’s got to be like that on the field. Ultimately, it’s going to be like that in the stands. And we can build on that. That’s our goal.”
Razov, formerly of UCLA and the fourth-leading goal scorer in MLS history behind Jason Kreis, Jaime Moreno and Roy Lassiter, is being counted upon to provide much of the scoring punch.
“I’ll just try to go out there and be as dangerous as I can, try to score goals, set up goals, chase people if I have to, defend, do whatever it takes to get this team to win some games,” Razov said.
