Chivas USA gets rude awakening at home
With injured midfielder Raphael Wicky next to him, Jesse Marsch sat in the locker room sporting a blank stare. A handful of Marsch’s Chivas USA teammates were doing the same, but most were in the showers scrubbing away the memories of an uninspired 2-0 loss at home to FC Dallas.
Marsch, however, was in front of his locker. His eyes were looking straight ahead at Maykel Galindo’s empty locker, but they might as well have been staring into space.
It wasn’t that Chivas lost that Marsch couldn’t quite understand, it was how it played, which, in the words of Coach Preki, was without “energy” and “commitment.”
“I’m embarrassed for our team right now,” Marsch said. “I guess we should have seen this coming, but I never thought we played this bad. We just haven’t been able to get it going this year.”
The loss could be blamed on injuries and on suspensions, which forced Preki to make five changes to the starting lineup from the week before, but goalkeeper Brad Guzan said the loss falls squarely on the shoulder of the players.
“We just didn’t have it today,” Guzan said. “We weren’t good from top to bottom, plain and simple.”
The Home Depot Center truly has been “home” for Chivas the last two seasons, but it wasn’t Sunday. Chivas lost at home for the third time in the last 20 months. The last time Chivas was shut out at home and lost was the last game of the team’s inaugural 2005 season.
Dallas (2-0-2), the lone unbeaten team in the league -- after Chicago lost to Kansas City, 1-0, earlier in the day -- scored its first goal 4 minutes 23 seconds into the game. Kenny Cooper, who netted his fourth of the season, was on the end of a tremendous cross from Dax McCarty and a flick pass from Ricardinho that put Guzan out of position.
In the second half, Preki went to a more attacking 4-3-3 formation as he inserted forwards Ante Razov and Attiba Harris to play up top with Galindo.
The switch helped generate more opportunities, but also left the team vulnerable to a counter attack on the wing.
Dallas’ Arturo Alvarez and Abe Thompson took advantage of the situation in the 79th minute when Alvarez sprung loose Thompson with a through ball to the right side of the field. Once with the ball, Thompson made a terrific play to elude two defenders and finish the play with a left-footed shot.
Razov provided Chivas (1-2-1) with its best opportunity to score in the 89th minute, when he just missed on a scissors kick that ricocheted off the post.
Asked whether this is the type of game where he doesn’t even bother looking at the tape and moves on, Preki answered no.
“I’m going to look at the video, I’m going to look at it and find out what’s going on,” he said.
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