Tie is good enough for Chivas to clinch
Goals were nonexistent in Carson on Saturday night. Achievements were not.
Chivas USA, in only its third season in Major League Soccer, clinched first place in the Western Conference when it held the defending league champion Houston Dynamo to a 0-0 tie at the Home Depot Center.
The result means that Houston will play FC Dallas in an all-Texas encounter in the first round of the playoffs. Chivas USA’s opponent will not be known until after today’s MLS regular-season finale in Chicago between the Galaxy and the Fire.
A Galaxy victory would set up a two-game, all-Los Angeles series for a place in the conference final. If Chicago wins, Chivas USA would play the Kansas City Wizards. If the game ends in a tie, Chivas would play Chicago.
No matter who the opponent is, Chivas has made a memorable climb up the MLS ranks in only three seasons, reason enough for there to be champagne with a lower-case C flooding the locker room floor in the game’s aftermath.
“It’s huge. It’s absolutely huge,” said goalkeeper Brad Guzan. “To go from worst to first, it’s an unbelievable feeling. To be with this club, to see it grow, to see it through the hard times and the good times, it sure feels good to be part of a great time right now.”
Chivas USA finished with a 4-22-6 record in its inaugural season in 2005. Saturday night’s result means that this season it ends at 16-7-7 and playoff-bound for the second year in a row.
In a tense game with both teams playing more cautiously than usual, first place was not secure until the very last second, when Guzan made a spectacular instinctive save off an equally spectacular close-range bicycle kick by Houston’s Dwayne DeRosario.
“The ball came in, I saw DeRosario with his back to me. He’s a talented player, a great player, and you have to be ready at any point whether he’s got his back to you or not,” Guzan said. “As soon as he went up a bit, I knew it was coming towards me. I tried to cut down the angle and luckily it came right at me.”
The shutout was Guzan’s 13th of the season, the second-best single-season record in MLS history behind the 16 shutouts achieved by Tony Meola with Kansas City in 2000.
Guzan said the Chivas playoff opponent’s identity is of no concern.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “We’re going to enjoy this right now and when that game comes we’ll be ready for whoever it is. The guys in this locker room have fought for this all year long.”
Chivas managed to hold onto the tie despite playing a man down for 50 minutes after the ejection of midfielder Lawson Vaughn five minutes before halftime when he made a late tackle on Richard Mulrooney in the midfield and was immediately shown the red card by referee Baldomero Toledo.
“I was very surprised,” said Vaughn, who will be suspended for Chivas’ first playoff game. “I thought it was a 50-50 ball. . . . There was no intent to take him out. That’s not my game. At worst, I should have gotten a yellow, maybe.”
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