I tend to take a public fleecing whenever I write about Chivas USA. Something about how I have it in for the little Goats, how I only write about bad things happening around the club, etc.
Of course I have written nice things here and there. But pretty things to fawn over are just so doggone hard to find with this club; it’s like looking for true wisdom on The Learning Channel.
So as we analyze what has gone wrong for the Goats, now 3-6-1 and positioned bottom of the West, I’ll let the Chivas USA experts take over. I listened in on the What the Flock podcast (find it here through the link at The Goat Parade blog), devoted to all things Chivas USA. And before we get into the whys and wherefores, how about this from one of the trio of Goat blogger-podcasters:
This team is destroying my marriage. It’s destroying the relationship with my kids. The voices in my head are all whack … I need muscle relaxers.”
Yes, that’s a good place to start.
The feel like Jose (“Chelis”) Luis Sanchez Sola has failed to adapt to MLS in too many way. His personnel does not reflect the physical nature of the league. Chivas’ young players are technically adept, but far from prepared for a league where brute force still too often rules.
Nor has Chelis seemed to adapt his broader tactics. Chivas USA remains married to that three-man back line, which gets repeatedly exploited for playing so dangerously high up the field.
Teams generally don’t play three in the back in MLS, although it has been done, notably by some of Steve Nicol’s better teams at New England a few years back.
But to roll with three in the read and play so high requires speed, something in dreadfully short supply around the Home Depot Center’s second tenant. Bobby Burling, for instance, may be a reasonably equipped defender – but he just doesn’t have the recovery speed to play that far up the field without sufficient cover.
(MORE: Chelis increasingly sounds like a man broken by Chivas)
The Goat Parade’s Alicia Ratterree sees an offense now showing signs of life, with just a little more of a plan and perhaps even some rhythm slowing creeping in. But it all falls apart due to that overmatched defense – because what offense can reliably produce the three or four goals a game that seem to be needed?
She also mentions the lack of a midfield destroyer, which is exactly what I saw during Saturday’s 4-1 loss to Real Salt Lake.
That dubious strategy of playing such a high, three-man backline only has a chance if the midfield can apply constant pressure, and a cop on the ball-winning beat in there, some Osvaldo Alonso-type hunter, would be a great start.
Said Rodriguez: “On the one had the attack got going, and on the other hand the defense is brutal.”
(MORE: Connecting false dots with David Beckham and Chivas USA)
They crack wise on the point that that this coaching regime (under Chelis) is doing things quite differently than the last coaching regime (Robin Fraser), which was doing things quite differently than the previous coaching regime (Martin Vasquez) … and yet the results look remarkably, painfully similar.
And then there is the Juan Agudelo trade. The trio discusses recent reports that Chivas USA got no more than $75,000 in allocation money for the young U.S. international, a pretty bad deal, even if Agudelo does cruise overseas at the end of the MLS season.
Said Rodriguez:
For the kind of talent he is, and if you watch even just the highlights his first game with New England, he played phenomenally … He showed his impact right away with his new team.
“I can see why theoretically you could want to get some value for a player who is not going to stick around for long. But as far as getting results on the field, it seems to have been a disastrous move. Ever since he came out of the [Chivas] lineup when he got hurt, that’s when the attack fell apart. … It was certainly puzzling.”
So there you go. They said it. I didn’t have to.
