Chivas USA vs. Seattle Sounders FC - match coverage

Greetings. I'm at Home Depot Center and the Chivas-Seattle game is just kicking off. I'll be on here during the match and afterward. Probably won't do a minute-by-minute recap of the action but I'll chime in accordingly. I've got just the two stories to write and file at the whistle so I won't be as busy as usual, though I could always find things to occupy my time.

Anyway, enjoy the match.

10 - Fredy Montero almost scored an incredible goal. He had a breakaway just now, walked past the Chivas defense and had Zach Thornton charging towards him. But from about 22 yards, Montero tried to chip the 'keeper but pushed his shot just wide of the goal.

32 - Sorry. Got distracted by another story I had to finish for Goal.com. See what I mean about occupying my time? Anyway, Chivas just scored. It was an own goal as James Riley knocked a ball into the back of the net, but Jonathan Bornstein set that goal up perfectly. He used his speed to get past a Seattle defender and put a lot on his centering pass, enough so that Riley's clearance attempt, no matter what he got on it, was going into the goal.

Filling the midfield void

Chivas USA will be without Paulo Nagamura tonight. Nagamura picked up a red card against the Galaxy a week ago and will be absent.

Nagamura will leave a gaping hole in the middle of the field. Nagamura's one of Chivas' best and most important players, both with his ability and leadership. I thought he got a bit carried away last week and that temper got the better of him as he kept yapping at the referee and that probably led to a quick yellow on his first booking. He deservedly picked up the second yellow and is now unavailable tonight.

My best guess in terms of filling the hole is with Sacha Kljestan. With Kljestan in the middle, Atiba Harris could slide to the right side of the field and Alecko Eskandarian could get his first start of the season.

Another option would be to move Mariano Trujillo to the right flank, move Carey Talley to right back and have Jim Curtin start in the middle. Curtin's size could match up well against Nate Jaqua, but Curtin's slow and he'll also have Fredy Montero and Fredde Ljungberg to deal with. Talley's not quite as slow as Curtin and might be able to handle that better.

Kasey Keller won't be in goal for Seattle but if anyone thinks that will make for a simple Chivas victory, they're mistaken. Seattle's got a lot of firepower and will put pressure on Chivas' goal. The difference from last week is that Seattle's got multiple weapons up top. Plus, this unit is still difficult to score on. They've allowed one goal in four games, and that was when they were down a man.

I'm looking forward to seeing Seattle in person but would have liked to have seen Keller and seen a full-strength Seattle squad but we'll just have to wait until June 6 for their return visit, at least to see them once again play Chivas.

Hey you people!

Chivas USA will host Seattle Sounders FC on Saturday for the first time, which means the club will go against some former Galaxy figures, including one player who harbors no positive feelings about Chivas USA.

Actually, against their fans.

Here's what Peter Vagenas told MLSnet.com about the possibility of playing in Saturday's game against Chivas USA.

"They busted my window last year, those people. They followed me home and cracked open my (car) window," Vagenas said, referring to the Chivas USA fans. "After the last SuperClásico. It was on their home field and I took the trophy to celebrate with their fans. ... I didn't know who they were but they followed me home and smashed my window. So I owe 'em one."

Vagenas, who has yet to play for Seattle because of injury, was never one to hide his feelings about Chivas USA and reveled in beating his then-rivals. While he now has an allegiance towards another club, those anti-Chivas feelings apparently have not lessened at all.

I'm just wondering you "those people" are. The Union Ultras? Legion? Maybe the front office or the players themselves? Maybe Preki?

Anyway, Vagenas played some for the Sounders in a scrimmage on Monday, but whether or not he travels to LA for the game remains to be seen.

Sounding an alarm

Looks like Seattle will be climbing in my rankings.

The Sounders got off to an impressive start on Thursday, demolishing the Red Bulls 3-0 at Qwest Field. Fredy Montero looks like the real deal while the support looks like it will be strong in the Emerald City.

Seattle set the bar high for Philadelphia and Vancouver (and Portland) for incoming expansion teams, and showed that the previous failures of the four most recent expansion teams can be overcome. Of course, there are still 29 games left to be played but this team showed on Thursday that it could be in the mix for a playoff spot.

New York, meanwhile, showed that their run to MLS Cup was likely a fluke and not the start of something special.

It's Seattle

MLS Cup 2009 will be played in Seattle.

The league's championship match will be held in the Emerald City, which is a great sign for the fledgling franchise. More than 20,000 season tickets have been sold, the club looks about as strong an expansion team that this league has seen and now this.

Kudos to the Sounders. I'd say they have a shot of playing in the game but that's a stretch at this point of the season, no matter how good the team looks on paper. They will have their growing pains for sure. It may be a month or two, maybe less, but they'll struggle like all other expansion teams have struggled.

Still, the preseason could not have come to an end any better for Seattle.

Alonso to Seattle

Remember Osvaldo Alonso? The Cuban defected from the national team and wound up on trial with Chivas USA. He spent the last several months of 2007 with the club but then mysteriously vanished, resurfacing in the USL as an explanation of what happened with him here was never clearly given.

Alonso proved that he does have the ability to make an MLS roster, but that is not here with Chivas USA. Instead, Alonso has joined Seattle and will try to compete for a spot with the expansion club. Alonso spent last season with Charleston of the USL 1st Division but had caught Sounders coach Sigi Schmid's eye while trialing with Columbus.

Not sure what the hangup was with Chivas USA but Alonso could have added some midfield depth a year ago. It was clear the guy could play soccer and he showed that often during training sessions.

Sigi in Seattle

Sigi Schmid was officially presented as the Seattle Sounders head coach on Tuesday. One of the main non-soccer reasons he chose Seattle was his family ties to the area. His brother Roland lives in Seattle and Schmid had a son who attended the University of Washington.

As far as the footballing aspect, it will be really interesting to see how Seattle enters 2009. The expansion club will have problems as all recent expansion teams have had early on but Schmid is, in my opinion, the best coach in MLS history. He's won two MLS Cups and another coach with a similar resume helped turn things around quickly in his expansion season. Frank Yallop guided San Jose to... okay, last place, but the team was in a much better position during the second half of the season than it was from April through June.

Schmid has more to work with at the start of the season than Yallop did - Darren Huckerby didn't get there until the summer - and Schmid has yet another expansion team to look at and see what went right and wrong for them and try to avoid doing the same mistakes.

Whatever happens in 2009, one thing is certain - if Schmid and Yallop stick around, the Western Conference will be quite strong as the pair plus Dominic Kinnear will head three formidable teams. Bruce Arena, of course, is also out here so the soccer minds running their respective teams are strong. The only thing with Arena is the volatility of the situation with the Galaxy but if he can stabilize things, this conference could potentially have some great and proven MLS coaches pulling the strings out here for years to come.

Sigi's gone

Sigi Schmid is gone. In a move that surprises few people, Schmid will no longer coach the Columbus Crew.

Schmid, who is easily one of the best coaches in Major League Soccer history, is likely to take over the expansion Seattle Sounders, which would be nothing short of a coup for the first-year club.

Schmid won MLS Cup titles with the Galaxy in 2002 and this year with Columbus and also has US Open Cup and CONCACAF Cup titles to his name.

We saw how successful a two-time MLS Cup-winning coach was this year with San Jose and Frank Yallop - the club was horrid early but improved vastly over the course of the season. Thus, I'd expect Seattle to be competitive next year; maybe not from the start but Seattle will be heard from at some point in 2009.

Mark your calendars

Seattle Sounders FC versus New York Red Bulls, Thursday March 19, 2009.

So says the Seattle Times.

The match will thus open the 2009 MLS season. March 21 was the date given for opening day but it appears the league will take time to spotlight its newest team against the MLS Cup runners-up.

The league is supposed to release the first weekend of games later today.

Can Seattle compete?

The dust has settled on the 2009 Expansion Draft and Seattle looks like a real team now. Although I'm still hesitant to piece together a starting lineup as I think Seattle could turn around and deal half of these guys, the latest MLS team seems to have drafted players they plan on keeping and using.

Now the big question is will this team be halfway decent or will they be another expansion disaster?

There will be some growing pains, no doubt. Seattle can't expect to shoot out of the gates next season but at some point they will get their first win, their first unbeaten streak and their first signs of respectability.

Anyway, this team actually does not look terrible. I think with each passing year and each passing expansion draft, teams learn from others' mistakes and use all that information to their knowledge. Seattle won't be the favorites to win the West - at this point, Houston will be favored by most although RSL will undoubtedly be up there - but the Sounders may actually put up a fight.

So what will their team look like? Here's what their lineup could look like next season:

G: Kasey Keller
D: James Riley, Jeff Parke, Tyson Wahl, Nathan Sturgis
M: Sanna Nyassi, Brad Evans, Peter Vagenas, Freddie Ljungberg
F: Nate Jaqua, Sebastian LeToux

The back line lacks a true standout. Parke is out of contract and likely could wind up in Europe if an offer comes along. Seattle should still be in the market for a central defender and overall depth across the backline as that is the place where most expansion teams had struggled before the 'Quakes played well defensively a season ago.

I don't think that Seattle is done dealing. I think we could see a lineup that is quite different than this one come March. But time will tell if the Sounders approached this the right way.s

Seattle has a team now

It's official. Seattle has a team. Well, they had a team all along but they have a roster now. Here are the players they selected in the Expansion Draft:

1. Nate Jaqua (Houston Dynamo)
2. Nathan Sturgis (Real Salt Lake)
3. Jeff Parke (New York Red Bulls)
4. Jarrod Smith (Toronto FC)
5. Khano Smith (New England Revolution)
6. Peter Vagenas (Los Angeles Galaxy)
7. Tyson Wahl (Kansas City Wizards)
8. James Riley (San Jose Earthquakes)
9. Stephen King (Chicago Fire)
10. Brad Evans (Columbus Crew)

Some thoughts:
- Galaxy fans will probably NOT be upset at Peter Vagenas' selection. It's kinda strange that Vagenas was taken considering his reluctance to leave the Galaxy. He loves the Galaxy, has bled for the Galaxy and had wanted to stay with the Galaxy until his days were done. Now this. If Sigi Schmid is taking over the team as has been rumored, this makes sense. Otherwise, I'm not sure. I've always admired Pete, always felt he was a great and underrated leader but it seems his heart is with the Galaxy.

- Chivas USA fans can now breathe a huge sigh of relief over Jorge Flores. "Sueno" was not taken and it appears Seattle made a glaring mistake. Flores is a talented player who will undoubtedly clamor for playing time next year. Even if Seattle did not see a need for him, certainly they could have dangled him as trade bait to another team that did. Also, Lawson Vaughn and Carey Talley were not taken so the club will move forward with business as usual.

- Nathan Sturgis is probably the player with the biggest upside on the roster. He's battled nagging injuries and will no doubt be an asset to Seattle if he can get over them.

- Not sure of Nate Jaqua's contract status. If he's not out of contract and he ends up suting up for them, Seattle just got themselves a talented scoring option, something expansion teams don't normally have.

Still waiting

We've been trying to follow the progress of the MLS Expansion Draft but so far no word on who has been taken and what the new-look Sounders FC will look like.

The draft was supposed to have happened at 10 am PT but now I'm hearing not until noon. So one more hour at the earliest until we find out. If and when I hear anything, I will report back. Until then, here's a highlight of one player we know will be on their roster:

Expanding little

It seems like it's an annual thing now, this MLS Expansion Draft. Every year, right after MLS Cup, a team gets to choose from marginal players, young guys, out-of-contract players, basically the scrap heap. There are inevitably some good players on the list, some talent, but ultimately this draft is a process of getting the new team from nothing to something. This isn't about team building, it's about getting some guys in only to get rid of them later.

I've followed expansion drafts closely since 2004, when I was at the Chivas USA expansion draft get-together they had at the ESPN Zone in Anaheim. And I've followed their progress and Real Salt Lake's and kept a close eye on Toronto and San Jose in their expansion seasons. I've really come up with one conclusion: the expansion draft is not how incoming teams build up their rosters.

Back in '04 both Chivas and RSL tried to build their rosters somewhat with the expansion draft. And I think that's where things backfired on them. Chivas and RSL initially had different ideas of how to build a team - Chivas wanted a Mexican presence and took guys like Arturo Torres, Francisco Gomez and Antonio de la Torre and all were gone by season two (the latter was gone before preseason). Orlando Perez was a good catch for them but he wasn't the backbone of the team or anything. RSL's last remaining player from the expansion draft is Andy Williams, who was a good catch for them as well but they too had trouble even getting those guys in and keeping them around.

They had terrible seasons, so in turn that forced Toronto to take a hard look at how they wanted to approach the draft. They dealt players away, most of them actually. They traded away nine players after the draft, including Danny O'Rourke and William Hesmer to Columbus, as the only player to actually make the season was Paulo Nagamura, who was then dealt away four games into the 2007 season.

San Jose last season did the best job of actually building its team from the expansion list as five players are still on the roster from last season's draft. But three have not been protected so it gives you an idea of how much value those remaining players have.

Seattle will have their first-ever team assembled on Wednesday, but if you are going to scour the expansion draft list and try to guess their opening day lineup based on that and the players they have already, forget it. Now, that doesn't mean they won't go after guys to fill specific roles - Lawson Vaughn of Chivas USA would be a great pickup for Seattle, for instance. So too would would Corey Ashe of Houston. But mostly, this draft will come and go and little impact will remain.