For Chivas USA, new players joining the team is not just a probability but a nearly absolute fact -- like a lottery, it's just a matter of time before it pays off.
Against the Fire, Chivas USA allowed four second-half goals to turn a 2-1 halftime lead into a 5-2 loss, just another in a string of bad defeats. The club's slide cost Thomas Rongen his coaching duties, and new coach Hans Westerhof promised new players and said he hoped to announce the newcomers by the first days of July.
Knowing that new players will arrive and replace existing ones is something that weighs on the club's mind.
"There's so much talk about this player coming and that player coming but at the end of the day we have to go out and play the game on Sunday with who we've got here," defender Ezra Hendrickson said. "The players who are here need to play, not trying to make a mistake but just go out and play and not worry about who's coming. At the end of the day we have to go out and do our jobs."
Published reports this week said that the club was close to signing budding superstar Juan Pablo Garcia of Atlas. However, both Chivas and Club America were in the bidding for the 24-year-old striker.
Still, media reports can only cause friction and uncertainty amongst players and in the end damage the team, Hendrickson said.
"Players need to go out and not worry about this player coming or that player coming," he said. "All this talk out in the media about who's coming, we can't let that bother us. I'm not letting it bother me. I'm just going to go out and continue to play my game."
In the midst of two-a-day training sessions, players pointed toward Sunday's match against San Jose and not the impending arrivals as motivation to perform well. Whatever happens beyond the field is not in their hands, players said.
"At the end of the day, decisions are going to have to be made about who's going and who's staying," Hendrickson said. "Whatever it is, our play on the field is going to do the talking."
Luis Bueno is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
