Sunday, February 17, 2008

Chivas gets destroyed

A lot of reserves played, but Japan's U-23s beat Chivas USA by 4-0 on Saturday. Haven't gotten the release on it yet so can't post full lineups but only a handful of starters played any substantial minutes.

We'll see who plays for the team on Monday against DC United, a match I will attend.

Good thing is for some of you planning to catch Chivas USA in Santa Clarita for the Feb. 23 friendly against Columbus, some of the walking wounded are hoping to play in that game, so you may see the return of Jonathan Bornstein and perhaps some of the other injured players (Panchito Mendoza, Alecko Eskandarain, Paulo Nagamura, etc.).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Luis,

Any thoughts on how Chivas USA plans to play a 4-3-3 this season? Is that still in the cards and have they been playing in that formation in preseason games?

Here are some questions I have with Chivas USA in that formation:

1. Who will play #9 if Razov is injured? I don't see Eskandarian as a #9 to step in for Razov. Frankly I don't think Eskandarian played well last year and I don't expect much from him this year.

2. Who will play the attacking mid #10 role? I don't know how Chivas USA's 4-3-3 is shaped, but I can see Kljestan playing as a 2-way mid with Marsch behind him as d-mid. But who will play behind the strikers and what depth is there at the attacking mid position?

3. Where will Jorge Flores play? I guess this is more a hypothetical question because he's unlikely to be a starter this season, but do you see him backing up Mendoza as left wing/striker or backing up Bornstein as left wingback? I've read the news that Preki appears to be moving him back to defense, which frankly has me a bit disappointed because I thought Flores showed a lot of promise playing closer to goal in an offensive role.