Notable: Chivas USA have notched five consecutive losses since much-heralded Shalrie Joseph arrived from New England to turn their season around and push the club into the playoffs. So much for that idea.
Quotable: Chivas USA’s problems are now at both ends of the field:
“For a lot of the year we weren’t creating opportunities, and in the last three games we’ve created quite a few, but we have not scored as many as we have liked to,” coach Robin Fraser said. “Really the goals that we have given up in the past three games have been just subpar, and inexcusable to be quite honest. As I said, for most of the year we have been talking about the fact that we are not creating enough, and over the past couple of games we have created enough chances, but we have given up some really, really poor goals.”
*No Landon Donovan, no Michael Bradley (both injured) for Saturday‘s Friday’s World Cup qualifier in Jamaica and the return leg in Columbus, but LA native Herculez Gomez (Santos Laguna) was included in the 25-player squad named today.
Notable: With the return of their ’11 version of the back four again, the Galaxy registered consecutive shutouts for the first time this season.
And that meant Galaxy goalkeeper Josh Saunders wasn’t pushed to make a single save last night.
“We defended well tonight, especially in the first half,” Beckham said. “I think our defense was very strong. Omar is definitely looking a lot fitter and a lot more agile. After coming off an injury like that I think sometimes it takes a while, but he’s straight back into it and over the last few weeks he’s definitely been looking a lot fitter and performing the way he’s been playing has been great for us.”
Juninho was justifiably happy with his sixth goal in his last five games:
Sunhage not only leaves as a winner with the U.S., she rescued the USWNT from the depths of the Greg Ryan era:
“It was short-term chaos, it was a controversial period,” said U.S. Soccer President Sunil Gulati. “When we first had Pia come aboard, she was on a one-year contract with an option. It was a very unique situation and because of that we had a search that was a little bit different because we needed someone who could know the program and so on and so forth. She wasn’t in that situation as someone else who might’ve known it better. She stabilized the situation to win gold and we come very close to winning three gold medals in three tournaments. She’s obviously been very successful. Having said that, this team has never not been in the medal round of a tournament.
“Every coach that has coached at least four years for us has won a gold medal. Every coach of our national team has won a medal. She’s been very successful, but when you put a terrific group of players with a terrific coach and a terrific program, that’s what you get.”
