CONCACAF Champions League Preliminary Round: Tauro FC (Panama) at Chivas USA
This is more dinner party than soccer game. There's so few people here, you get the feeling people should introduce themselves to each other.
Attendance tonight has been capped at all of 2,000 - not that there are dozens, yet alone hundreds clamoring to get in, you understand. (The reason: something about lots of parking complaints at the sold-out Galaxy-Pachuca SuperLiga final).
Seating will be limited to five sections open to the general public on the west side of the stadium (beneath the press box) and the TV cameras will shoot from the north to give the illusion there's more than a few hundred people or so here as I write this about 15 minutes before kickoff.
Perhaps few believe Chivas USA can come back after losing by two goals in the first leg; perhaps even fewer care.
Which reminds me, the New England Revolution lost 4-0 (6-1 on aggregate) to Joe Public of Trinidad & Tobago in the early game.
Chivas USA will start Dan Kennedy in goal in place of Zach Thornton, with Eric Ebert at right back, Jim Curtin and Bobby Burling in central defense and Jonathan Bornstein out left.
Midfielders: Paulo Nagamura, Panchito Mendoza, Sacha Kljestan and Jorge Flores.
Strikers: Roberto Nurse and Justin Braun.
Ante Razov and Alecko Eskandarian are on the bench.
The game is on Fox Soccer Channel.
About 100 Percent Soccer
Sportswriter Nick Green has written the 100 Percent Soccer column since 2005. The blog of the same name began in 2007. 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 and is married to a long-suffering soccer widow. Join Nick on FaceBook.
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