Columnist Nick Green has written 100 Percent Soccer
since 2005. A
native of England, he began writing about soccer in
the mid-1980s and in 2000 permanently exchanged a seat
in the stands for one in
the press box. He lives six miles from Carson's Home
Depot Center, home of the Los Angeles Galaxy, Chivas
USA and the training headquarters for U.S. Soccer.
Married to a long-suffering soccer widow, he has a cat
named Pele.Half Time: Chivas USA-Real Salt Lake
It's Chivas USA 1 Real Salt Lake 0 in the opening 45 minutes.
After neutralizing each other for the first half hour, the two sides discovered the difference between them: Chivas USA can finish, RSL apparently can't.
Chivas USA struck in the 32nd minute, when Panchito Mendoza unleashed a galloping Maykel Galindo who evaded a tackle and pushed a through ball into the path of Sacha Kljsten, who beat goalkeeper Nick Rimando to slide the ball into the net.
RSL countered with a similar break three minutes later, but Kenny Deuchar somehow contrived to miss Robbie Findley's pin-point cross at the far post when it was surely harder to avoid the net than score.
In truth, Chivas USA should probably have led after Mendoza failed to latch on to a Galindo cross at the far post with about 15 minutes gone, sending a ball across the face of the goal that skimmed out of the reach of four Real Salt Lake defenders as well as Panchito
Chivas USA appeared to cope well with the absence of veteran Mexican defender Claudio Suarez for the second consecutive game, who was watching from the stands with his family after returning Friday from Mexico in the wake of his father's death.
Chivas USA is playing four in defense rather than three though, with Chris Pozniak essentially playing at right back.