Chivas USA -- road warriors?
Saturday's 2-0 win against Toronto FC at BMO Field gave Chivas its third road win of the season, which already matches the number of away wins recorded by the club in 2006. While the Red-and-White's 3-6-2 record away from The Home Depot Center indicates that they have a ways to go before being comfortable on the road, it serves notice that Chivas is no longer a pushover outside of southern California.
Chivas USA goalkeeper Brad Guzan knew that the home atmosphere would provide a boon to Toronto at their stadium as it does for the Red-and-White in Carson.
"When you've got 20,000 loud behind you, you tend to play a little bit different than when it's on the road," Guzan said. "We knew it was going to be a dogfight. They've got some very talented players on their team."
Guzan held steady in the face of 11 Toronto shots (three of which were on net) to record his seventh clean sheet of the year. The Chivas 'keeper is now tied for second in the league in shutouts, in spite of playing just 15 games. New England's Matt Reis, who led MLS with eight shutouts entering Saturday's play, has played 21 games by comparison.
As far as Guzan is concerned, his teammates are the reason for his performance.
"The guys in front of me get all the credit," Guzan said. "They made it easy on me tonight. I had to make one difficult save. I tip my hat to the guys in front of me, because when you limit somebody to one good opportunity over 90 minutes, it makes your job a lot easier."
The one difficult save that Guzan mentioned, however, was a doozy. With Chivas up 1-0 in the 75th minute, Toronto forward Jeff Cunningham carried the ball towards the Chivas goal area and attracted the attention of three defenders. Cunningham then sent a pass to defender Marvell Wynne charging down the right side. Wynne fired as soon as he touched the ball, but Guzan stayed alert and charged towards Wynne to cut off the angle and knock the ball away.
Chivas may have caught Toronto at an opportune time. The Reds are on a seven-game winless streak and haven't scored a goal in 552 minutes, nearly an MLS record. In spite of Toronto's recent lack of punch, Guzan said he was taking the challenge very seriously.
"You can't look at that kind of stuff and those stats," Guzan said. "On any given day anybody can beat anybody. You've got to approach every game like it's your last and leave everything out on the field."
Chivas themselves looked somewhat listless on the attack in the first half, perhaps as an after-effect of a 20-day layoff between games. The break proved beneficial, however, to forward Maykel Galindo, who missed Chivas' last game against Kansas City and said he took a full week and a half without training.
Galindo looked fit when he collected a long downfield pass from midfielder Jesse Marsch in the 56th minute and delivered a well-placed strike into the right side of the TFC net to put Chivas ahead for good.
The goal was Galindo's team-leading eighth of the season, and it continues an impressive rookie campaign for the 26-year-old. It has even won him a few fans north of the border.
"I heard the public whistling at me because I scored a goal," Galindo said. "But after I was leaving, people were like 'Hey Cuban boy, you're doing well, keep working.'
"I'm happy first of all because I didn't have a visa to come into Toronto originally, and since I've gotten here to Toronto, I really like the city very much. This has been the stadium where I've seen the most fans supporting the local team and I'm happy because of the win and you know got a really good road victory."
The Toronto match gives Chivas two wins in three games on their four-game road swing, though their final road game will be on familiar surroundings. Chivas returns to The Home Depot Center on Thursday to play as the away team against stadium-mates Los Angeles Galaxy.
Chivas head coach Preki is already preparing for this next "away" match, and hopes that his club can continue the momentum they collected in Toronto.
"The thing is we had a great performance and a great result, but now we can't be taking it too high, losing our mentality and all that kind of stuff," Preki said. "We have to be ready for Thursday -- we know we have a tough customer in the Galaxy, a team that is going to give us problems, and then we know we have Salt Lake on Sunday. So we have a long week ahead of us and hopefully the men in our locker room will enjoy the win tonight and starting tomorrow will be thinking about the game against the Galaxy."
And, for the record, one more road win will give Chivas as many away wins in 2007 as they had in their previous two seasons combined. Not bad for Major League Soccer's newest kings of the road.
Mark Polishuk is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
