Barrett On The Mark

Chad Barrett has always been an enigma. He has all the tools to be a productive forward, gets himself in good spots during games but has been plagued with poor marksmanship.


He was able to set that aside for one match at least, as he scored his first LA Galaxy goal in Sunday's 2-1 win over Chicago. The goal wasn't as much about getting the monkey off his back as it was beneficial because he helped the team earn a victory.

He talked to the media a little bit about his goal against Chicago, why he chose to celebrate the way he did and a few other things. Andrea also mentions a bet she made regarding Barrett and an EPL star. The audio is down below.

As an aside, I'm trying this embed thing here and if it doesn't work, the link to the audio is here. And I'm not a fan of the iPod driving dude, but oh well.

Fraser Snippet

This may be outdated by the time you listen, or it may be fresh for another couple more hours/days/who knows?

But here is audio of Robin Fraser talking about the Benny Feilhaber decision, which as of 3:50 p.m. PT had not been made. The deadline was 2 p.m. PT so this whole thing has gone on for a ridiculously long amount of time.

Fraser talks about other things, such as Chivas' game at San Jose on Saturday, but the first portion of it is strictly Feilhaber.

The aftermath: Quaranta

Santino Quaranta was actually one to stick up for the referees. Well, he didn't exactly say that referee Terry Vaughn's terrible call was correct but he tried to talk about both sides of the issue.

Here's audio of my little chat with Santino.

He was actually a bit disconsolate, but it was mostly to do with his ankle. Quaranta had a giant bag of ice taped to his ankle as I talked to him.

The aftermath: Burch

Marc Burch wasn't as down as I expected him to be after the match. He was talking as if he'd just suffered a tough loss - a usual tough loss in which his team lost due to a mistake or three or a lack of effort.

Saturday's loss was an unusual tough loss because of a horrid red card that Burch was unfortunate to have received.

Here's the audio of what Burch had to say after the whole thing went down.

Perhaps since he had some time to think about things, he may have not been as depressed as you would expect. Or maybe he was so infuriated he needed the time to calm down and collect his thoughts.

Whatever the case, he won't play in DC's next league match. Through no fault of his own, of course.

The aftermath: Soehn

Tom Soehn wasn't one to hold back his thoughts after the DC's 5-2 loss at the Galaxy. He said the match officials had a rough night before calling the red card against Marc Burch a "travesty."

I gotta take a bit of credit for the last comment.

At the post game presser, Soehn answered a question about the defense and another about the Galaxy. He was about to step away as no one else had their hand raised for a question so I threw my hand in the air and asked him about the red card.

He didn't tear into the officiating crew but he was obviously none too pleased with the call.

Listen to the entire presser here.

Sacha on the loss

I had the chance to talk to Sacha Kljestan after the match and asked him what he thought about Preki saying that Sacha's mind was already on the national team.

Here's the audio of our conversation.

Sacha leaves for US duty early Wednesday and will be with the team for the games against Cuba and Trinidad. I also asked him about Cuba, but you'll have to wait for that audio.

Post-game presser

Just got back. Writing furiously but wanted to post up the audio of the post-match press conference featuring Preki and Roberto Nurse.

Audio of it here.

Now back to writing!

Thoughts on Tauro FC

Chivas USA will host a critical match against Tauro FC tonight. Chivas USA needs to win by two goals in order to have any hopes of advancing to the CONCACAF Champions League.

Here is audio of my post-game chat with Jonathan Bornstein about the game.

Acutally, it's a bit more complicated than just winning by two.

A 2-0 Chivas USA win would send the game to injury time.

A 3-1 Chivas USA win would send Tauro through (road goal edge).

If Tauro scores a single goal, that would ensure that the game would end in regulation no matter what.

Chivas USA will go through with a win by three or more goals regardless of how many goals Tauro scores.

Does Chivas have a shot? It's going to be tough. Ante Razov and Alecko Eskandarian were each already less than 100 percent and to expect them to go again at such a strong clip three days later might be asking too much. I'd expect Justin Braun and Roberto Nurse to play. With those two and Sacha Kljestan, Atiba Harris and Panchito Mendoza searching for offense, I think Chivas has a shot.

Defensively, though, Chivas could be gassed. The central defense pairing will be the same as Tuesday unless Claudio Suarez has some sort of miraculous recovery.

Still, this time it is Tauro FC who has traveled and will play in unfamiliar territory. That's an advantage as well.

If you're going to the game, remember that parking is free. That alone should make for a memorable match.

Esky returns

Alecko Eskandarian was the last player in the locker room on Saturday night. I don't know if he was getting treatment or not but he walked into the shower after nearly everyone else was dressed and on their way out to whatever they had going on after the game.

As I took an empty seat next to him, a camera crew approached him and began recording as I fired away some questions. That set up a pretty comical scene as Preki interjected some thoughts from across the locker room.

Here's audio of the interview. See if you can make out what Preki said to Esky, jokingly... I think...

Not holding back

John Carver didn't hold back much after Toronto lost to Chivas 2-1 on Saturday.

He said he was "absolutely furious" with his defense and also was disgusted with the league and its scheduling. In fact, he even said Toronto FC asked the league to postpone next Saturday's match against Chivas due to extreme hardship.

Here's audio of the interview.

Quickly, TFC has these guys absent on international duty: Greg Sutton, Tyrone Marshall, Jarrod Smith, Jim Brennan, Amado Guevara, Carlos Ruiz, Marvell Wynne, Carl Robinson and two others I'm missing.

Listen to the audio to see how he thinks he may have to fill the void.

Preki on the Clasico

Preki talks about the game. He was about as upbeat as you can be after that effort, but it was obviously tempered by the late Galaxy goal as well as Sean Franklin's costly elbow that may have knocked Jesse Marsch out for quite some time.

After the presser, Preki was met in the tunnel by a former LA Laker.

I beat Preki to the tunnel in an attempt to get to the Chivas USA locker room before it cleared out when I noticed quite a tall fellow. I thought to myself, 'Man, that is quite a tall fellow' ... or something.

Anyway, I did a second take and realized it was Vlade Divac. Vlade shook Preki's hand and the two started conversing in their native tongue, so I have no idea what they were saying. I think Vlade may have gone into the coaches offices for some time but by that point I was interviewing players and the like.

Leiweke speaks

You'll probably see a lot of this circulating around today so I decided to post up the raw audio of it.

Here's audio of Tim Leiweke speaking to the media moments after he spoke to ESPN2 about all things Bruce Arena.

Leiweke doesn't often make halftime appearances for us hacks. And he actually didn't either on Thursday, as many of us missed about five minutes worth of the match to hear what was being said about Bruce.

Anyway, I'm up working on other stuff so I'll check in periodically. Don't think I'm getting to Week 1 Day 2 of the Becks workout anytime soon. Sad.

Sangre americana preview: Guadarrama

Sonny boy! After the Clausura 2008 season, I would have bet money that Sonny Guadarrama would not have made it through the summer unscathed. A new coach came in midseason (Luis Fernando Tena) and Guadarrama saw zero playing time with the first team once that happened.

But Guadaramma made it and his prospects are pretty good - at earning playing time that is. Not sure about nabbing a starting spot.

Guadarrama, a native of Austin, Texas, broke into the Mexican leagues with Santos and moved to Morelia after the Apertura 2007 season. But with Morelia, he spent most of his time playing the Primera A.

He's back though and it looks like the seasoning may have paid off. He's been with the club during the preseason and could get a crack at some playing time in Morelia's midfield. Morelia struggled bad last season and could use some changes to help contend for the playoffs. Morelia made some good moves in acquiring Marvin Cabrera and Hugo Droguett but Guadarrama, 21, could add some youth to the team.

If you're interested, I actually had the chance to talk to Sonny in January during InterLiga. I was saving this interview and I suppose still am but nothing's come of it. So I'll put it up here and let you guys listen to Sonny's tale.

Sacha's last pre-Olympic clip

Well, maybe he'll talk to other reporters and maybe they'll put the audio up on a blog or site somehwere. Until that happens, though, here's Sacha Kljestan before he departs for the Olympic squad.

Sacha was disappointed about the result as everyone else on Chivas was. He felt they played well enough to win. Now, though, he can start thinking about China and the Olympics and all that good stuff that goes along with that tournament. It's a special time for him and the rest of the squad and now they get to enjoy it all.

Still, he was upset about not winning. The Olympics didn't take away from that.


Here's the audio.

Marsch on match

Jesse Marsch didn't seem too happy after the match. He is usually in decent spirits even after losses. That wasn't the case on Sunday. And I wasn't about to take a picture of him that way.

I asked Jesse all of the questions on the audio clip here. So most of the time he was looking right at me. I thought it would have been kinda strange for me to raise my camera and snap off a few pics while he was answering my question. I was hoping someone else would ask him something - anything - but that wasn't he case. Oh well. Still got the audio of course.

Matko on the match

Preki was not in the country on Sunday as he was in Serbia tending to some sort of family emergency. In his place was Mike Matkovich, the club's assistant coach.

Matko, as he is known to his players, and Preki took care of the starting lineups as they were in communication throughout the day. Not sure if Matko will have to explain much to Preki or if Preki watched the game in Serbia via the internet or something.

Preki was certainly missed but the squad did well without him. I did think that Matko sort of threw everyone out there after the Revs went up but I don't know that Preki would have done differently.

Here's the audio.

Parkhurst on Olympics

I got a snippet of Michael Parkhurst talking about the Olympics, actually a pretty good couple of minutes on it.

What I didn't get was a good picture of him.

I didn't really need to talk to Parkhurst but you never know what a player will say and when you might need to use some of his stuff, so you may see this somewhere else. Or you may not. In either case, here is the audio.

Ralston talks match, season

Steve Ralston was his usual calm self after the match. He didn't rip into the field nor did he get too excited about the prospects of playing at home.

He did however have a huge influence in the match as he sent in the corner that led to the equalizer.

Ralston answered some questions about the potential schedule logjam coming up as well as a bit on the All-Star game. And, of course, some on the naked passenger on the flight over here.

Listen to the Ralston audio here.

Reis rips field

Matt Reis was another of the players who did not care much for the field. In fact, none of the Revs players I heard had anything but negatives to say for the field.

Reis of course is a local guy, a UCLA product, and he was on the Galaxy before when the Galaxy played games here on a somewhat regular basis. But that was a long time ago. Now, the fields are expected to be much better than what was presented on Sunday.

Here's the audio of Reis.

Nicol post-game

Steve Nicol spent much of the imprompt post-game presser talking about the deplorable field conditions. He had as good a view as anyone and didn't really feel like the field was something that should have been used for a tournament of this magnitude.

The field was pretty bad. I could tell from up here that it wasn't the greatest but the way it went down, well, Nicol was none too pleased about it.

Here's the audio.