Chivas USA has battled through a difficult season so far. But walking into Dick's Sporting Goods Park on Saturday night with almost their entire first team out with injury, the Red-and-White still started to find some of the success of a season ago and left with a 2-1 victory against the Colorado Rapids.
Last season, when they won the Western Conference regular season, Chivas allowed less than a goal per game. After injuries, frustrations and a five-game winless run, Chivas USA now find themselves a force again in the conference.
"At the beginning of the seasons we didn't play confident and didn't play our style of football," said Sacha Kljestan. "I think tonight we set out with a game plan and we really executed it well. I think the mentality of the team has been really good the last couple of weeks and that is what has gotten us some of the results."
After losing four of their last five, Chivas USA have now won back-to-back games for the first time on the season.
"It's a good confidence boost," said Preki. "When we throw a young team like this onto the field and we come into an environment like this where we are playing a first place team and the guys get a result, we have to feel good about ourselves. Especially when we have eight or nine starters still sitting at home."
Chivas allowed 13 goals in their first five games -- almost half of their entire total from 2007. After defeating D.C. United 2-1 a week ago, they came to Colorado looking to limit the home team's chances first, then strike for opportunistic goals.
"The first 20-25 minutes, neither of the teams could a find any true momentum, and we were OK with that because our game plan was to frustrate and make it difficult on them," said Preki. "We didn't want to give them anything easy and I thought we did a pretty good job of that. The team was very disciplined and we stayed organized. After the 25th minute of the game I thought we were the better team. We started knocking the ball around our possession started getting better, and finally we scored a nice goal."
Said Kljestan: "We wouldn't play like that at home. But I think on the road on a big field like this is was good to be a little tentative. We executed our game plan really well and it worked out for us."
Chivas USA's defensive posture had an effect on the Rapids, who were unable to find Christian Gomez with any regularity or adopt their preferred strategy of attacking down the flanks.
"When we played a dangerous ball forward, we would always go negative with the next pass," said Rapids midfielder Colin Clark. "They were man marking Christian [Gomez] and I think they did a good job at that. ... The way they were coached to play against our formation was very good. It was almost as if they were playing a 4-5-1 or 4-3-3. Their two outside players would drop deep and cut the angles. ... The outside midfielders are very important in our formation and they did a very good job of cutting us out."
With so many injuries to key players (including their entire first-choice back four), Chivas USA have been forced to play some of their younger players and it looks like those players are beginning to gel and show their talent.
"At the beginning of the season we had even more injuries and we played some guys who weren't 100 percent fit," said Preki. "Maybe we shouldn't have played them and maybe we should have let them heal and thrown some of these younger guys in. But we all learn and these younger guys have gotten their chance the last two games and have done pretty well."
One of those younger players is midfielder Jorge Flores, who looked effective all night on the wing and scored what proved to be the winning goal in the second half.
"Jorge did well to score the second goal," said Kljestan. "He has really worked his butt off to fight and keep a spot on our team."
Despite a rough start to the season, Chivas USA looks well placed now to make an impact on the rest of the season. In the near future, it looks like they will have not only an opportunity to continue to climb in the standings but also to extract some payback.
"Everyone was frustrated for a while with four losses in our first seven so that was tough," said Kljestan. "But obviously we go home against Columbus, who beat us already once this season. They're coming off a loss [Saturday], we're coming off a win, so we really have to keep our momentum going and play with a lot of confidence."
Geoffrey Urland is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
