It’s all coming together for Chivas
All season long Chivas USA has been flying under the radar. With a great record at home and an awful record on the road, it was hard to figure out if Chivas was a contender or a pretender.
Not anymore. Not after the “major” 3-0 win against David Beckham and the Galaxy on Thursday that was witnessed by a national TV audience.
“The other coaches are now going to worry a lot more. They now know the level of play that Chivas has,” said forward Maykel Galindo, who scored his ninth and 10th goals of the season in the win Thursday.
Since the All-Star break, Chivas is 3-1, outscoring opponents, 10-2, with three shutouts. What’s more impressive is that all four games were on the road.
At home they are a league-best 6-0-1, but on the road they were a woeful 1-5-2 before the last four games.
“When we play on our field we know that we get stronger,” Galindo said, “but those games were away from home. Now they’ll look at us differently.”
A 2-0 win in New York, a hard-fought 3-2 loss in Kansas City, a 2-0 win in Toronto and the victory against the Galaxy will do that for teams. If Chivas can manage a victory tonight against Real Salt Lake, they’ll be tied with FC Dallas for second place in the Western Conference standings.
Chivas goalkeeper Brad Guzan can’t pinpoint a moment, a play or the game when things turned for the team, but it was during the New York and Kansas City trip, Guzan said, that things just came together.
“Words can’t describe the feeling that you get on the field when scenarios like that happened. You just look around and you see that fight within everybody’s eyes,” Guzan said. “When you look around and see that attitude and that mentality it’s comforting to know that everyone is in it together.”
Preki, the Chivas coach, agrees with Guzan. He says the team was heading in the right direction before the trip, but that it all came together on that weekend.
“From that moment we just started believing in ourselves,” he said. “We can do these things home, away, whatever against whoever.”
Chivas has 11 games left and eight are at home.
In league history only one team has finished a season unbeaten at home, the San Jose Earthquakes in 2005.
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TONIGHT
vs. Real Salt Lake, 6, FSN Prime
Site -- Home Depot Center.
Radio -- 1020 (Spanish).
Update -- Chivas will be without defenders Alex Zotinca (red card) and Lawson Vaughn (yellow card accumulation). The availability of defender Claudio Suarez, who after the Galaxy game received treatment for a lower-leg injury, is a game-time decision.
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