Rodriguez uses head for Chivas
Chivas de Guadalajara’s Francisco Javier Rodriguez has two nicknames, “the trunk” and “Maza.”
Trunk because members of the Mexican media think he plays like a tree trunk. He is big, strong and not easy to move.
Maza is short for Mazatlan, his hometown.
One of those nicknames is the one Galaxy players will remember most after Saturday night -- here’s a hint, it’s not the one about his hometown.
Rodriguez, a 25-year-old rising star with the Mexican national team, scored on a header in the second half to help Chivas to a 2-1 victory over the Galaxy at the Coliseum.
Omar Bravo came in off the bench shortly after and scored another goal to send the pro-Chivas crowd of 37,337 into a frenzy.
The stadium was not filled to capacity as it was last year, when Chivas played Barcelona in an exhibition, but the crowd was just as wild, what with drum banging, gigantic banners, colored smoke bombs and fireworks.
From the start Chivas controlled the game.
It looked faster and crisper, at times making Galaxy players look as if they were the ones in preseason mode, and came close to scoring multiple times early.
But it wasn’t until the 59th minute that Chivas finally found a way to penetrate Joe Cannon’s net.
On a corner kick, Chivas’ Ramon Morales chose to play the ball short to Omar Esparza. As Galaxy players came out of the box to charge the ball, Esparza sent the ball into the box, where Rodriguez outjumped the defenders to head the ball past a diving Cannon.
“I’ve had to mark him on many occasions in practice and Maza is a player that if you give him position, and he jumps, you won’t be able to move him,” said Chivas and national team teammate Jonny Magallon. “Today he proved once again that he is a great player when the ball is in the air, and if he’s close to the net he’s lethal.”
The goal energized the crowd, and that made the Galaxy’s job that much tougher, Cannon said.
“And they feed off that,” he added. “It was very cyclical.”
With the stadium at its loudest, the crowd began to chant for Bravo, last year’s Mexican League goal-scoring champion.
Chivas Coach Jose De La Torre didn’t disappoint the crowd and inserted the striker in the 67th minute. In return, Bravo didn’t disappoint, when he widened the lead to two goals with a beautiful diving kick.
Landon Donovan made it 2-1 with a late goal, but Chivas was not to be denied.
And it was all thanks to that first goal, De La Torre said.
“It helped us define the game,” Chivas’ coach said. “And you can see in the final score it made a big difference.”
--
