Chivas USA vs. Real Salt Lake | MLS Match Preview

CHIVAS USA vs REAL SALT LAKE

THE HOME DEPOT CENTER, Carson, Calif.

May 19, 2013 (WEEK 12, MLS Game #112)
7:30 p.m. PT (KUCW)

Chivas USA and Real Salt Lake meet for the second time this season when they face off Sunday evening at The Home Depot Center. Chivas USA are coming off back-to-back defeats, their last a 3-0 loss at the Portland Timbers last weekend. Real are finishing off a three-game road swing, ending an East Coast trip with a late 3-2 loss at the Montréal Impact a week ago.

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REFEREE: Sorin Stoica. AR1 (bench): Corey Rockwell; AR2 (opposite): Fabio Tovar; 4th: Juan Guzman
MLS Career: 13 games; FC/gm: 27.6; Y/gm: 4.5; R: 2; pens: 5

DISABLED LIST: CHV: Daniel Antunez
SUSPENDED: CHV: Carlos Alvarez (through May 19); Mario de Luna (through May 25) … RSL: Kwame Watson-Siriboe (through May 19)
WARNINGS:
SUSPENDED NEXT YELLOW CARD: none
SUSPENDED AFTER TWO YELLOW CARDS: CHV: Tristan Bowen, Joaquin Velazquez … RSL: Ned Grabavoy, Lovel Palmer
INTERNATIONAL ABSENCES: none

HEAD-TO-HEAD
ALL-TIME (24 meetings): Chivas USA 10 wins, 30 goals … Real 10 wins, 30 goals … Ties 4
AT CHIVAS USA (13 meetings): Chivas USA 7 wins, 20 goals … Real 5 wins, 14 goals … Ties 1
FUTURE MATCH: 10/23: Real Salt Lake vs. Chivas USA, 7 p.m. MT

• The teams are meeting for the second time this season. Javier Morales scored the game’s only goal early in the second half to give RSL the victory, April 20 at Rio Tinto Stadium.
• Since the two teams came into the league together as the expansion class of 2005, they have exactly halved their all-time series, each team winning 10 meetings (with four draws), each scoring 30 goals.
• Real Salt Lake have won four consecutive matches at The Home Depot Center vs. Chivas, including 3-0 and 4-0 victories in the last two meetings a year ago. The last six meetings between the two teams have ended in a shutout.
• The last six meetings between the two teams, over the past two seasons, have ended in a shutout. The visiting team had won on four consecutive occasions before RSL’s win earlier this season.
• Coaches record: José Luis Sánchez Solá v RSL: P1 W0 L1 D0 … Jason Kreis vs. CHV: P15 W8 L6 D1

LAST MEETING (MLS)
4/20: RSL 1, CHV 0 (Morales 53)

• Chivas had a glorious opportunity in the 35th minute. From a corner kick, the ball deflected toward net and hit the arm of Ned Grabavoy in the box, and referee Jorge Gonzalez immediately pointed to the spot. But RSL goalkeeper Nick Rimando parried away Edgar Mejía's shot.
• The game's only goal came in the 53rd minute. Olmes García hit a ball forward into the right side of the box to Álvaro Saborío, who deftly chipped the ball to the middle. Javier Morales timed his run perfectly and headed the ball to the bottom-left corner of the net for his first goal since September 2012.
• REAL SALT LAKE (4-1-3-2): Nick Rimando - Tony Beltran, Chris Schuler, Nat Borchers, Lovel Palmer - Yordany Alvarez - Luis Gil (Sebastian Velasquez 74), Javier Morales (Khari Stephenson 90), Ned Grabavoy - Olmes Garcia (Robbie Findley 63), Alvaro Saborio.
• CHIVAS USA (3-1-4-2) Dan Kennedy - Mario de Luna (Carlos Borja 40), Joaquin Velazquez, Bobby Burling - Marvin Iraheta (Giovani Casillas 58) - Eric Avila, Carlos Alvarez, Edgar Mejia (sent off 94+), Jorge Villafana (Tristan Bowen 66) - Jose Correa, Julio Morales.

CHIVAS USA
Chivas USA suffered a second consecutive defeat and saw their winless streak stretched to five games, falling 3-0 to the Portland Timbers on Sunday evening at Jeld-Wen Field. Chivas USA sit in ninth place in the Western Conference with 11 points from 10 matches.

LAST MATCH

• The Timbers took the lead in the 34th minute. On a counter off a corner kick, Rodney Wallace broke free down the left wing on a perfectly-timed feed from Ryan Johnson, then beat his defender and finished inside the far post with a nifty left-footed lob.
• The Timbers put the game away in the 70th minute when Wallace and Darlington Nagbe teamed up to unlock the Chivas defense with a series of passes at the top of the area. Wallace fed Diego Valeri on a perfectly timed through ball, and he easily beat Chivas goalkeeper Patrick McLain from the heart of the area.
• Portland completed the rout in stoppage time, when Will Johnson latched onto a short corner and hit a beautifully struck, right-footed shot from the left corner of the area that curled inside the far post past the outstretched arms of McLain.
• Chivas head coach Jose Luis Sánchez Sola made five changes to the team that lost 4-0 to Sporting Kansas City at Sporting Park. Patrick McLain came in for the suspended Dan Kennedy in goal, Steve Purdy came into the back line for Bobby Burling, Marvin Iraheta and Josue Soto came into the midfield for Jorge Villafana and Julio Morales, and Giovani Casillas replaced Jose Correa up top.
• CHIVAS USA (4-1-3-2): Patrick McLain - Mario de Luna, Steve Purdy, Joaquin Velazquez, Carlos Borja - Marvin Iraheta (Aaron Ponce 59) - Eric Avila, Edgar Mejia, Josue Soto - Giovani Casillas (Jose Correa 46), Tristan Bowen (Jose Rivera 65).

TEAM NEWS

• Chivas have conceded seven goals in their last two matches; they are now riding a five-game winless streak, shut out offensively in four of those games.
• “We knew it was going to be a tough game and my team played, but it was simply not enough,” said Chivas head coach José Luis “El Chelís” Sánchez Solá.
• With the defeat, Chivas USA also fell into the basement in the Western Conference standings. They were in second place in the division as recently as April 13.
• “It’s tough to go through, but we can either have our heads down or keep fighting,” defender Steve Purdy said. “Next week at home, we have to get a result. That’s the bottom line. These things happen in the league; you go through your ups and downs. We were up and now we’re struggling a little bit, but in sports there’s always an opportunity to react.”
• Goalkeeper Patrick McLain made his first professional start in the loss to Portland, in place of the suspended Dan Kennedy, and again allowed three goals. He allowed three goals in 36 minutes as a substitute after Kennedy was sent off in the Sporting KC match.
• “We have to work on possessing the ball. We haven’t played much defense in these games,” said Purdy. “It comes down to us committing ourselves personally and see what we can do at an individual level so the team will get better. We can possibly change something tactically, but it’s something we need to change within ourselves.”
• After getting a tie and a win from their first two away matches, Chivas have lost their last three on the road, allowing eight goals. They have not scored in 271 minutes away from The Home Depot Center.
• “The last two road games have been difficult,” said midfielder Josue Soto. “It’s not an excuse for why we’ve lost, but we’ve got to turn around and play well at home [vs. Real Salt Lake]. … We have confidence in this group and we want to make this better.”
• After being acquired from sister club CD Guadalajara earlier in the week, midfielder Martín Aaron Ponce made his Chivas USA and MLS debut, coming on for the final half-hour.
• Giovani Casillas also made his first start since the opening game of the season, playing 45 minutes in attack before coming off for José Correa.
• Chivas USA also acquired midfielder Gabriel Farfán from Philadelphia Union during the week. “A player that will contribute and one that will adapt to what we want to do,” Chelís said. “We’re not looking for anything more, nothing extraordinary. Here, no one is required to do the extraordinary, and Farfan is not an extraordinary player.”

READ: Mario de Luna defends his motives in ball boy incident: "I'm not a violent man"

REAL SALT LAKE
Real Salt Lake continued their three-match road swing with a late loss, falling 3-2 to the Montréal Impact on Saturday afternoon at Stade Saputo. RSL sits in third place in the Western Conference with 17 points from 12 games.

LAST MATCH

• The game's opening goal came in the seventh minute when RSL defender Lovel Palmer hit a blast from well outside the box that took a nasty deflection off Impact defender Matteo Ferrari and caught goalkeeper Troy Perkins off guard as it looped past him.
• But the Impact scored the equalizer in the 39th minute. Justin Mapp sent in a low cross from right flank for Felipe, who slid and beat defender Kwame Watson-Siriboe to the ball before hooking it in.
• Real regained the lead in the 77th minute when shot from a corner kick by Kwame Watson-Siriboe was blocked, but fell right to Kyle Beckerman, who coolly slotted it home.
• Montreal leveled just three minutes later on the sixth goal of the season from Marco Di Vaio, who walked a fine line to stay onside and finish a chance created with a clever combination between defender Maxim Tissot and forward Andrew Wenger.
• The winner then came three minutes into stoppage time. A corner kick skipped through the RSL penalty box to a wide open Ferrari, who blasted a right-footed volley past RSL goalkeeper Nick Rimando for his first career MLS goal.
• RSL head coach Jason Kreis made four changes to the team that came back for a late 2-1 win against the New England Revolution at Gillette Stadium. Lovel Palmer and Kwame Watson-Siriboe came into the back four for Tony Beltran and Carlos Salcedo, Sebastian Velasquez started in midfield in place of Luis Gil, and Olmes Garcia replaced Joao Plata up top.
• REAL SALT LAKE (4-3-1-2): Nick Rimando - Lovel Palmer, Kwame Watson-Siriboe, Chris Schuler, Chris Wingert - Sebastian Velasquez (Khari Stephenson 69), Kyle Beckerman, Ned Grabavoy - Javier Morales - Olmes Garcia, Devon Sandoval (Joao Plata 85).

READ: RSL put goalscoring woes firmly behind them thanks to balanced attack
TEAM NEWS

• Real Salt Lake are concluding a three-game road swing with the trip to southern California, which began with a late 2-1 win at New England and a late 3-2 loss at Montréal.
• “It was an amateur way to fall to a team that I thought we played a good game against. With the veterans we have on this team, we should have been able to pull back and know that a point on the road is OK,” said goalkeeper Nick Rimando. “So it’s disappointing for sure, but we have to move on. We should have been able to clear their last corner kick or beat them to the ball and that’s one thing we will look at, clear up and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
• Real Salt Lake are 1-4-1 when they concede the first goal; they are 4-1-1 when they score first. They have held the lead at halftime though in just one game this season – an eventual 2-1 win vs. Seattle on March 30.
• “I think it's frustrating because I don't feel like we've had a lot of leads, and certainly not a lot of early leads this year,” RSL head coach Jason Kreis said. “I feel like we are always kind of responding to adversity. To be in the driver's seat there at the beginning of the game had a little bit of a different feel. To look back at the moment, what happened when we were up 1-0, we had two glaring chances to go 2-0 and didn't take either one of them. And then Montreal starting coming to the game, caused us some problems."
• For the first time this season, Devon Sandoval and Olmes Garcia were the front two. Kreis has run out nine different striker combinations this season.
• “I think Devon and Garcia worked extremely hard and used their attributes to their benefit. All in all, I think it was a pretty well played match by Real Salt Lake,” said Kreis. “We just have to look at how we finished because if we would have walked out with even one point I think we would have felt pretty good about ourselves.”
• Kyle Beckerman scored his first goal of the season, and has now scored a goal in every season since 2004. He has scored 29 career goals.
• “I think a loss like this can really help us move forward, we need to get a good week of practice in and then when we get back into this position we’ll get something out of it,” Beckerman said. “We were able to create quite a lot of chances, but we weren’t able to capitalize on them and they were able to on more than one occasion.”