Halftime: Red Bulls at Chivas USA

Chivas USA 0 New York Red Bulls 0

This is a scrappy, disjointed affair with more errant passes and impotent runs than quality scoring opportunities.

Each side had just one half decent chance at goal.

Chivas USA’s came in the 11th minute, Brazilian Maicon Santos almost making the Red Bulls pay for a poor clearance, which fell to Paulo Nagamura. His shot hit Santos on his instep and the resultant ricochet flashed just wide of the post.

New York’s opportunity came from a Danleigh Borman corner kick, which Dane Richards almost turned in at the near post.

New York finished without a shot on target and Zach Thornton didn’t have to make a save. Chivas USA weren’t much better; they had one shot on target

BTW, I should note Gerson Mayen and Jorge Flores are missing for Chivas USA. Mayen played the full 90, while Flores was a 36th minute sub in the 3-0 U.S. loss to Germany today at the Under-20 World Cup in Egypt.

And no, the game wasn’t as close as the score suggests; the U.S. were thoroughly outplayed by a team just as fit and strong as them, but far more skillful and tactically aware.

Updated: Striker Maykel Galindo has come in for midfielder Jesus Padilla as the second half begins, in what is an obvious attempt at trying to find more firepower.

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New York Red Bulls (4-17-5) at Chivas USA (11-9-4)

The Galaxy’s 2-0 loss in Columbus earlier today (more on that later) has given Chivas USA the opportunity to pull within one point of their intrastadium rivals with two games in hand. But they need to win today to accomplish that.

Preki makes just one enforced change to the team that drew 0-0 with Seattle last time out, Carey Talley coming in for the suspended Marcelo Saragosa, shown a red card against the Sounders.

Chivas USA XI: Thornton, Talley, Bornstein, Cuesta, Jazic, Padilla, Lahoud, Nagamura, Kljestan, Braun, Santos.

Galindo and Lillingston are on the bench.

Preki will undoubtedly hope to finish the game with 11 men; Chivas USA has had players ejected for the last three games in a row.

Juan Pablo Angel leads the attack for the woeful Red Bulls.

The game is on Fox Soccer Channel.

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College Roundup

Friday’s Men’s Games

Cal State Dominguez Hills 4 Cal State Stanislaus 1
The Toros scored four unanswered second half goals to get the win.

Cal State Northridge 0 University of Denver 0
CSUN extend unbeaten streak to six.

San Diego 1 UCLA 2
Palos Verdes Estates’ Kyle Nakazawa scored a PK in the win for the Bruins.

Friday’s Women’s Games

Pacific 2 USC 3
The Trojans score three goals in 10 minutes to overcome a two-goal deficit.

Cal State Dominguez Hills 1 Cal State Stanislaus 0
CSUDH have never lost to CSS; their record is 17-0.

Cal State Northridge 0 UCLA 2
Bruins extend winning streak to seven games.

Arizona State 1 Pepperdine 0
Pepperdine fall to 5-3.

Loyola Marymount 1 Cal State Long Beach 0
Lions extend unbeaten streak to three games.

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Galaxy, Chivas USA Saturday Gameday

The tight MLS playoff race

The Galaxy meet the Columbus Crew at 4:30 p.m. today and there are four viewing parties locally.

There’s no David Beckham.

Chivas USA faces a must-win game against the hapless Red Bulls at 7:30 p.m. at Home Depot Center (or on Fox Soccer Channel).

Injuries and more injuries are the story of this one so far.

Key fact: New York are the only MLS team not to have won on the road this season.

I’ll blog from the game, so join me then.

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Chivas USA Injury Curse Strikes Again

The latest player to go down: midfielder Bojan Stepanovic, out four to six weeks – essentially the season then – with “a dislocated patella in his right knee” suffered Wednesday in the game against that other Chivas.

Didn’t he just get here?

And I bet Preki was thrilled this happened in a friendly.

Also, the elderly Ante Razov, who supposedly still has a playing career even though he hasn’t played since the Middle Ages, underwent yet more surgery this week.

From the Chivas USA press release:

Razov has undergone successful surgery on his left ankle. The procedure, a repair of the Achilles tendon and removal of bone spurs, was performed on Wednesday … in Santa Monica. Razov, who was already on the team’s disabled list due to the injury, is expected to miss up to four to six months while recovering from the surgery.

And how do they know the surgery was successful already? By the fact he lived, perhaps? Because if the definition of “successful surgery” is playing pro soccer again we’d better wait and see.

Chivas USA faces the New York not so Red hot Bulls Saturday at Home Depot Center.

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Becks to Miss Galaxy Game Against Crew

Coach Bruce Arena told reporters in Columbus today that despite the injury being a 50:50 thing, the club would leave David Beckham in L.A. as a precaution with what’s described as an achilles tendon issue. He’s likely to only miss the one game, although it’s a big one at this stage of the season – the Crew are tied for the top spot in MLS with Houston, with the Galaxy lurking just two points behind.

BTW, full back A.J. DeLaGarza, who missed the last game with a bone bruise on his knee, did make the road trip and could feature in Saturday’s game.

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Waiting for the Weekend

In men’s soccer Thursday, Loyola Marymount beat Riverside 1-0 in a non-conference game at Sullivan Field, freshman Chris Bernardi scoring the winner with just 3:41 left in the second half. The No. 20-ranked LIons move to 5-2 on the season ahead of Sunday’s 7 p.m. home game and final non-conference match of the year against Cal State Bakersfield (3-3-1).

In other local college games this weekend:

*The Cal State Northridge women (4-5) meet No. 3-ranked UCLA (6-1-1) at 4 p.m. today at Matador Field. UCLA are without suspended Coach Jill Ellis and striker Sydney Leroux; the Bruins are also likely without senior Lauren Cheney, who is training with the U.S. Women’s National Team at Home Depot Center. The big draw: $1 dogs.

*The 5-1 Matadors men are at Cal State Fullerton for a tournament this weekend. They play Denver (2-2-1) at 5 p.m. today and Coastal Carolina at 11 a.m. Sunday at Titan Stadium.

*The UCLA men (3-1) travel to meet San Diego (4-2) at 7 o’clock tonight and host UNLV (4-1-2) at 5 p.m. Sunday

*The Loyola Marymount Women (5-3-1) meet Long Beach State (4-4-0) at 4 p.m. today at Sullivan Field and Cal State Bakersfield (4-6-0) at 1 p.m. Sunday at the same venue.

*After losing 1-0 to Cal State L.A. Wednesday, the Cal State Dominguez Hills men hosts Cal State Stanislaus at 7 o’clock tonight and Chico State 2 p.m. Sunday in a pair of games at Toro Stadium; the CSUDH women meet their counterparts from the two schools at 4:30 p.m. and 11:30 a.m. at the same venue respectively after beating Cal State L.A. 1-0 Wednesday.

As usual far too much soccer on the box to take it all in, so click to the link on the right for all the details.

Here are my picks for what to watch:

*4:30 a.m. Saturday ESPN2 Portsmouth-Everton
*6:55 a.m. Saturday ESPN Classic U.S.-Germany (delayed) at the U-20 World Cup.
*7 a.m. Saturday Fox Soccer Channel Liverpool-Hull City
*9:30 a.m. Saturday FSC Fulham-Arsenal
*11 a.m. Saturday GolTV Barcelona-Malaga
*2 p.m. Saturday FSC Inter Milan-Sampdoria (delayed)
*4:30 p.m. Saturday FSN Crew-Galaxy
*7:30 p.m. Saturday FSC Chivas USA-Red Bulls

*9:55 a.m. Sunday Galavision Brazil-Costa Rica at the U-20 World Cup
*10 a.m. Sunday KVEA Pumas-CD Guadalajara
*11:30 a.m. Sunday FSC AC Milan-Bari
*Noon Sunday Telefutura D.C. United-San Jose

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Galaxy Open 2010 Season March 27 Vs. Revs, Chivas Open Following Day Against Colorado at HDC

It’s the second consecutive season opener for Chivas USA against the Rapids.

The Galaxy’s game against New England will be shown nationally on Fox Soccer Channel.

MLS announced their games for the opening weekend this morning; the complete league schedule is slated for release in February.

Here are the details from MLS.

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Final: Chivas USA-Chivas

CD Guadalajara 2 Chivas USA 0

I “watched” this one on TV and this description of the alleged action by reporter Phil Collin is apt: “The first half was like a family reunion with everyone sitting in the living room trying to dream up something to talk about.”

Still, that didn’t prevent a Chivas USA player from suffering a potentially serious injury (bet Preki is thrilled with that).

Find out who and read the game story here.

Lineups:

Chivas USA – Jon Conway, Carey Talley (Mariano Trujillo 46), Shavar Thomas, Claudio Surez, Bojan Stepanovic (Michael Lahoud 44), Jess Padilla (Yamith Cuesta 53), Marcelo Saragosa, Paulo Nagamura (Cesar Zamora 46), Sacha Kljestan (Justin Braun 46), Maicon Santos (Chukwudi Chijindu 46), Maykel Galindo

Chivas de Guadalajara – Luis Michel (Hugo Hernandez 85), Edgar Mejia (Edgar Solis 65), Aaron Galindo (Jonny Magallon 46), Hector Reynoso, Omar Esparza, Amaury Ponce (Ramon Morales 46), Patricio Araujo, Gonzalo Pineda (Mario DeLuna 46), Xavier Baez (Omar Arellano 46), Marco Fabian (Julio Nava 72), Omar Bravo (Sergio Avila 62)

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