Goal.commentary: Chivas USA Out Early - Again

It’s going to be yet another slightly early offseason period of morning beach visits, surfing, and glistening suntans for the players of Chivas USA. On the face of it, 3 years of playoff action in a row for the 4-year-old club would seem like a success. But the club’s inability to advance beyond the first round is starting to feel like a jinx.

After a 2-2 draw against Real Salt Lake knocked them out of the playoffs, the mood in the locker room was more stunned than angry or bitter. Players had a flat tone to their voice and a film over their eyes. The usually articulate leaders such as Ante Razov, Jesse Marsch, and Sacha Kljestan were left grasping at clichés as to why Real Salt Lake were advancing to the conference finals, and why they would be rummaging for their swim trunks.

“It wasn’t meant to be,” said Razov.

“It just didn’t fall our way tonight,” said Kljestan, refusing to look reporters in their eyes.

“In the end, we just came up short,” said a composed Marsch, though he is normally seething after a loss.

Most players couldn’t put their fingers just yet on how they lost the series. Questions of that nature churned out platitudes about how well RSL played or the Utah team’s work ethic and aggression.

They found it much easier pinpointing where the season overall went awry. The squad suffered an average of 6 players out injured for every game, and lost several key players for extended stretches. It wasn’t the injuries themselves, but rather the inconsistency that bothered the players and kept them from getting on a roll.

“It never felt for more than one month or so that we felt great as a team,” said Kljestan, who was the calm scorer of the penalty on the night.

Results back up his complaint: Chivas would win and reap their points in mini-spurts. They never did hit a purple patch of form.

“It was just a tough year for us,” said captain on the day, Marsch. “It always felt like our backs were against the wall and couldn’t get ourselves into a rhythm.”

Contrast this with RSL, undergoing their best run of the year. They are unbeaten in six matches, and haven’t lost away in four games. Such a steady string of results is unheard of in Salt Lake history.

Razov, for one thinks something needs to be done about the incessant injuries before next season.

“I think everything needs to be assessed, from training methods, from guys’ professionalism, to our workout programs,” he said. “I think everything has to be looked at. Each and every guy has to look at themselves and see where their breakdowns were. All of that has to be looked out to see why this was going on.”

That will be something for Preki and his coaching staff to investigate in the offseason. For now, the former USA international was left ruing his squad’s performance in the away leg of the tie, last week in Salt Lake.

“We created some things, it just wasn’t enough,” he said in the press conference. “I thought the last minute goal in Salt Lake was a big thing. The series was lost over there. If we had the same type of commitment in Salt Lake [as we did tonight,] we would have not lost this.”

The MLS Cup final will be played in the home of Chivas USA: the Home Depot Center. But Chivas won’t be there to enjoy it. Instead, they will be catching some waves, wondering when they’ll catch the wave that takes them beyond the first series in the playoffs.  

Zac Lee Rigg is an Associate Editor of Goal.com USA