Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Deep and talented

How deep is Chivas USA? The team they sent out against New York today, the first-half team anyway, was a decent one. And that team wasn't full strength. Not by a long shot. All you have to do is compare teams to see how good this club can be.

Tuesday's first-half squad: Brad Guzan; Jorge Flores, Claudio Suarez, Jim Curtin, Alex Zotinca; John Cunliffe, Jesse Marsch, Marko Murlin, Sacha Kljestan; Ante Razov, Atiba Harris.

The players who were not available for the game: (okay, no decent goalie to call in but...) Sam Reynolds; Jonathan Bornstein, Shavar Thomas, Bobby Burling, Lawson Vaughn; Francisco Mendoza, Paulo Nagamura, Raphael Wicky, Anthony Hamilton; Alecko Eskandarian, Maykel Galindo.

There is some notable dropoff in a few positions but this team has close to an embarrassment of riches.

Shavar Thomas, by the way, is stuck in Jamaica. He's trying to get a visa to get his way back into the United States.

5 comments:

James said...

L.B.,

Marko Murlin? Is that your way of calling French defender/midfielder Marko MUSLIN (#99) a Larent Merlin copycat?

If it is, that's pretty funny.

-- Jaime

Anonymous said...

I'm not a Chivas USA a but now that I am living in LA and see the LA MLS teams more, they impress me.
It's baffling to me that people pick everyone BUT them to be contenders in the West. I can't imagine them not winning the conference if they remain relatively healthy. Dynamo was decimated a bit up top and Chivas USA looks every bit as strong.
As long as we don't get another Houston v. Revs final I'll be at least 20% happier in my life.

Anonymous said...

People would rather see us play somewhere else than here. In the meantime, we've made the playoffs the last two years, despite not having a Donovan or Beckham type.

Oh well, haters beware.

Anonymous said...

and we are a young team. 08 will be our 4 season.

JT Soccer said...

Looks like the Fire alumni squad is growing there with the addition of Curtain to Marsch, Razov and Guzan (reserve Fire). Want to add Chad Barrett to the list?