Chivas USA are down to 10 men for the last 23 minutes or so; striker Eduardo Lillingston just picked up a second yellow in the 67th minute for a lazy tug on an opposing player in midfield. Completely unnecessary. Preki will not be happy with that undisciplined act.
Chivas USA 1 Tigres 1
A horrible shot from Bojan Stepanovic that was going well wide was fortunately collected by half time sub Michael Lahoud for his first goal as a professional.
There was a nice buildup after Jorge Flores threaded it through to Eduardo Lillingston who pulled it back for Stepanovic though.
Lahoud came in for Jesse Marsch at half time, while Flores came on for Sasha Victorine, BTW.
Chivas USA 0 Tigres 1
Chivas USA have pressed, but haven’t really broken down a young, but well-organized Tigres team.
The closest Chivas USA came to an equalizer was when Maykel Galindo flicked on a short ball from Eduardo Lillingston that bounced off Tigres goalkeeper Aaron Fernandez. Paulo Nagamura had done well to thread the ball through to Lillingston, but Chivas USA has lacked the final incisive ball against what is essentially a Tigres reserve team. The Mexicans are keeping numbers behind the ball and looking for the quick break.
Each team has just one shot on target and Chivas USA goalkeeper Zach Thornton has yet to make a save.
BTW, the Chicago Fire, who Chivas USA play Tuesday in SuperLiga, beat San Luis 1-0 on a Brian McBride goal in the early game.
Chivas USA 0 Tigres 1
Chivas USA went down a goal in the 11th minute after young Tigres striker Armando Pulido volleyed a ball into Zach Thornton’s net from 14 yards out with what amounted to a half bicycle kick.
Chivas USA Coach Preki makes two changes from the team that lost to the Columbus Crew last time out, Claudio Suarez making his first start of the season in defense in place of Shavar Thomas (who is on the bench) and Sasha Victorine starting in midfield for Atiba Harris. Harris suffered from knee pain all week long, club officials said.
Chivas USA XI: Thornton, Trujillo, Suarez, Talley, Jazic, Victorine, Marsch, Nagamura, Stepanovic, Galindo, Lillingston.
None of Tigres’ recent signings, including U.S.-born Edgar Castillo, have dressed for the opening SuperLiga game.
Pretty spotty attendance; not many Tigres fans either. This is the first competitive game ever between the two sides.
BTW, both Suarez and Lillingston are former Tigres players.
The Galaxy (2-3-9) took one shot on goal and scored. It was well-worked: a Mike Magee free kick was headed on by Alan Gordan and met by a ghosting Jovan Jirovski.
But Earthquakes goalkeeper Joe Cannon wasn’t forced into making a single save the rest of the way. And the Galaxy continue to generously give struggling opponents a boost. The Earthquakes move to 3-8-3.
Central defender Gregg Berhalter was to blame for the early first goal holding Pablo Campos to give up the PK.
Let’s recap: Former Pasadena City College star Yura Movsisyan completely turned Gregg Berhalter inside the penalty area last week to score Real Salt Lake’s first goal in their road win; Berhalter was sent off against the Wizards for holding Claudio Lopez just outside the box as the last man back; he was sent off in similar circumstances on his Galaxy debut against Chivas USA.
Anyone sense a pattern?
Highlights:
The 2-2-9 Galaxy face the similarly struggling 2-8-3 Earthquakes at 1:30 p.m. today on ESPN2, the start of a seven-game stretch that sees LA play five matches on the road. The Galaxy, seeking to rebound from last week’s 2-0 home loss to Real Salt Lake, are without the suspended Eddie Lewis, while Landon Donovan is on national team duty.
More from an Earthquakes perspective is here.
BTW, the Galaxy and Earthquakes have both scored just 15 goals this season (only the Red Bulls have scored fewer), but the Earthquakes have conceded 10 more than LA. Can Edson Buddle and the Galaxy take advantage of that on the road?
Chivas USA, meanwhile, embark on their SuperLiga campaign at Home Depot Center against Tigres. The game kicks off at 7 p.m. live on KFTR.
CONCACAF has released the 30-player rosters for the Gold Cup.
Here’s the U.S. roster.
The Galaxy’s Landon Donovan is absent, but Chivas USA Jonathan Bornstein is named as are Southern California products John Thorrington and Robbie Rogers. The most unfamiliar name: Aston Villa’s Eric Lichaj.
Chivas USA was named to Canada’s squad, BTW, and while we’re at it here’s Mexico’s roster.
I’ll blog from the Chivas USA game tonight, so please join me then.
MLS has responded to the latest pontificating by the FIFA boss. In case you missed it, here it is:
PRETORIA, South Africa – (AP)
FIFA president Sepp Blatter renewed his call for Major League Soccer to adopt an August-May schedule, saying it will struggle to persuade more star players to follow David Beckham to the United States unless it matches its season to those in Europe. Blatter said that the current March-October season was the overwhelming reason that MLS cannot compete with Europe’s top leagues.
“There is one big problem there and they know, the organizers know, that as long as you don’t have your own stadia in the MLS, you have to use stadia from another sport, which is American football,” Blatter said. “With the season played from March to October, you are not in the so-called good international season. The result is that you will not attract star players from Europe to play for only six or seven months, with the exceptional case of Beckham.”
Beckham joined the Los Angeles Galaxy from Real Madrid in July 2007 but was loaned to AC Milan from January through the end of the Italian season last month to better his chances of maintaining a spot on England’s national team.
Beckham is set to rejoin the Galaxy for its July 16 game at the New York Red Bulls.
Citing that 17 of the U.S. Confederations Cup players are based outside the U.S., Blatter said Beckham is likely to be MLS’s sole star import for the foreseeable future.
“Your best players play in Europe,” Blatter said. “You take your 23 players here and most of them play in Europe, so this is not the right solution for MLS.”
MLS commissioner Don Garber agrees with Blatter in theory. By next season, 12 of the 16 teams will control their own venues, all but Washington’s RFK Stadium, Houston’s Robertson Stadium, Kansas City’s Community America Ballpark and San Jose’s Buck Shaw Stadium.
“We regularly evaluate all aspects of our competition, including the timing and format of our season,” Garber said in a statement. “Because of the extreme winter weather in many of our markets in the U.S. and Canada, a switch to the international calendar would pose many challenges for MLS and its fans. I am convinced that the time will come when we do adapt to the international calendar. I just don’t believe that time is in the foreseeable future.”
Soccer’s governing body demanded that the United States create a national league as one of its conditions for awarding the country the right to host the 1994 World Cup. The MLS began in 1996 and Blatter said organizers had long been aware of the problems regarding the clash in calendars.
MLS routinely schedules matches on international fixture dates.
“They have to play and adapt themselves to the international calendar,” Blatter said. “If they do that, they can have success. I spoke several times and I spoke on this 10 years ago when I was still secretary general and nothing has changed in the USA.
Thoughts: I vote we give Blatter a ball in Toronto in February and see how long it takes for him to break a foot as he kicks the frozen thing around.
Hmmm, Brazil’s best players are in Europe. Really hurt their national team hasn’t it?
He’s right about the stupidity of MLS playing on international fixture dates though. (Only Don Garber could make Blatter sound relatively intelligent).
What do you think?
The games that matter:
1:30 p.m. Saturday ESPN2 Galaxy at San Jose Earthquakes
5 p.m. Saturday KFTR San Luis at Chicago Fire
7 p.m. Saturday Tigres at Chivas USA
11 a.m. Sunday ESPN Brazil-Italy
11:25 a.m. Sunday ESPN2 Egypt-U.S.
3 p.m. Sunday Fox Soccer Channel FC Gold Pride at Sol
Meanwhile, the Galaxy tradition of shipping out apparently subpar players only to see them become reborn elsewhere continues in Portland with former goalkeeper Steve Cronin and in the nation’s capital where Josh Wicks is supplanting Louis Crayton.
But former Chivas USA midfielder Panchito Mendoza has seen his time at the mothership come to an end.
A spineless and listless performance against a team that only had to play 20 minutes to walk over and through the U.S.
Of course that was 20 minutes more than the likes of DaMarcus Beasley (mercifully removed at half time in what should be his final appearance in a U.S. shirt because if you can’t concentrate in the attacking third against Brazil you have no business being on the field), Clint Dempsey (who holds the ball far, far too long every time he gets it) and Sacha Kljestan (discovering intelligence counts for something in international football) played.
The first legitimate U.S. chance didn’t come until the 83rd minute when Jonathan Spector combined with Landon Donovan to set up Benny Feilhaber’s crossbar-bound shot. And the fact the U.S. hit the bar twice is misleading and doesn’t indicate just how dominant the Brazilians were.
Despite the three goals, the defense wasn’t as much of a problem as the static midfield.
Positives: full backs Spector and Jonathan Bornstein looked fairly sound, with the Chivas USA player at least demonstrating the effort many of his teammates lacked even on the third Brazilian goal.
Feilhaber continues to look among the most imaginative and technically proficient American players.
Negatives: Um, how about reconstructing virtually the entire midfield with just a year until the World Cup begins and finding strikers who look interested.
And that’s just to start.
If Italy ties or beats Egypt later this morning the U.S. is flying home early.
Your input is welcome.
Updated: Italy-Egypt reaction
The Americans are still technically alive in the tournament, but need to score a jillion goals or so to move on against Egypt.