Over the past four weeks Chivas USA has translated their hard work into home wins, having won four of their last five games at The Home Depot Center.
Now the club must prove it can carry that success over to away games.
Chivas USA improved to 5-5-1 with a 2-0 win against the Columbus Crew on Sunday. The club sits in fourth place in the Western Conference table and could move into third place with a win against Colorado on Wednesday.
However, in order to do so, Chivas must win for the first time outside their own building. The club's lone road victory came without much traveling: Chivas was technically the road side in the club's 2-1 win against the Los Angeles Galaxy on June 8 at The Home Depot Center.
"At certain points here we've got to win games on the road," Chivas USA coach Bob Bradley said. "You've got to have a mentality of knowing how to take points when you go away from The Home Depot Center."
Last season, Chivas did not win a road game until its penultimate away game, a 1-0 win against Columbus on Oct. 1. Thus far, this year has been a complete turnaround from 2005 as Chivas has already surpassed its win total from a year ago. Nevertheless, results away from home have not come easily.
Chivas has lost all four of their games away from Carson and has been outscored in those games by a combined 12-6. Even though the effort has been solid and the club has been competitive in all those games, the results just are not there.
"To a man, we all understand that's not good enough," Bradley said.
Chivas will play four of their next six games on the road and all but Saturday's contest at Columbus will be against Western Conference teams.
"We need to start getting results on the road to become a strong team and to get into the playoffs," Chivas midfielder Juan Pablo Garcia said. "When you are a visitor, the atmosphere is different, the surroundings are obviously different and you just need to do a good job of adjusting."
Unlike its road games, Chivas have been nearly unbeatable in its building. In seven games at The Home Depot Center -- including the "away" game against the Galaxy -- Chivas has four shutouts and has lost just once. Only the Chicago Fire have allowed fewer than Chivas' four goals conceded at home, and the Fire have played exactly one home game.
But there is not a huge disparity between playing styles at home and on the road, players said.
"We play the same way we do on the road," Chivas defender Tim Regan said. "It seems sometimes on the road we get into a little trouble understanding each other. I'm not sure why. It shouldn't make that big of a difference. It's still the same field. At home, we just do a great job of staying compact and being a good unit."
As Chivas prepare to embark on a two-game jaunt to Colorado and Columbus, the club hopes to do better than play well and lose.
"Is there an underlying frustration that we've had too many of those days? Yeah, absolutely," Bradley said. "Making that step (to win a road game) will require getting on each other, pushing it, keeping it under control but at the same time raising the bar a little bit. That's the next step. We have to take it."
Luis Bueno is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
