🇺🇸 Chivas USA (USA)

Chivas USA (USA)

Founded by Mexican businessman Jorges Vergara and formed from the Mexican club, Chivas de Guadalajara, a club that Vergara had taken over in 2002, Chivas USA were admitted into the MLS as of August 2^nd, 2004, when Vergara decided to expand the club. The club would play at the Home Depot Centre along with fellow Los Angeles soccer club LA Galaxy. They, along with ten other clubs, would compete in the MLS of 2005. The club would adopt the colours of red and white, in which they gained their nickname, Los Rojiblancos, which is exactly what that meant. They were also known as ‘The Goats’ as well.

The clubs first MLS game was a home match against DC United, a club who had won the MLS Cup the season before. On April 2, 2005, they lost the game, 2-0, o no surprise. Not many had envisaged the club would make any impact in their debut season. The club had appointed Thomas Rongen as head coach, a Dutch American football manager who wanted to bring a certain style of play to the club. But the club failed to produce on the field, winning just won game in their first ten games they played in the MLS, and that solidarity win came against fellow newcomers, Real Salt Lake. The club decided to shake up their coaching department, with Rongen becoming the new sporting director. After a small stint of having interim manager, Javier Ledesma, the club appointed Hans Westerhof as the head coach on June 3^rd, 2005.

Westerhof didn’t last long, and he was relieved of his duties in November 22^nd, 2005, after what was seen as a disappointing second season, in which the club finished bottom of the Western Conference, winning just four games out their 32 matches, drawing six and losing twenty-two. Despite their horrendous season, the club still manage to average an attendance of just over 17 thousand per match. However, this was still much less than their city rivals LA Galaxy who were averaging just over 24 thousand spectators per match.

With Westerhof’s departure, the club knew they had to make the right appointment for the following season. It had to be one that would both bring results on the field but would capture the imagination of those fans in the stands. And so, on November 23^rd, 2005, the club appointed former MLS Coach of The Year, Bob Bradley. It was an inspired appointment as the club turned it around on the pitch during the 2006 season. The club managed to qualify for the MLS play-offs, winning ten, losing nine and drawing thirteen in the Western Conference, finishing 3^rd, and finishing 6^th overall out of the twelve competing. The other big achievement that year was finishing above city rivals, LA Galaxy, who failed to qualify for the play-offs. This was Chivas’s chance to make their mark and gain the upper hand with regards soccer superiority in LA.

They were drawn against Texan club, Houston Dynamo, and played the first leg on October 22^nd, 2006, at Hoe Depot Centre, Carson in front of over 15 thousand fans. The Californian side won the first leg, 2-1, thanks to goals from Razov and Palencia, while Ching scored Houston’s goal. It set up the second leg nicely. That took place on the 29^{th of} October 2006 at the Robertson Stadium in Houston. The tie was still in Chivas’ favour until Houston were awarded a penalty in the 64^th minute. Bradley Davis put it away, meaning the tie was now 2-2 on aggregate. But the deadlock in the tie was broken in the 93^rd minute when Ching scored his second of the tie, meaning Houston Dynamo’s progressed to the next round. It was still seen as great progression by Chivas under Bradley, who himself had won the MLS Coach of the Year award, the first man to do so twice. The club felt like they were on an upward spiral and were looking forward to the 2007 season. However, success came with a price and Bradley was soon gone, picked to be interim manager of the USA’s men’s national team and was to manage the USA men’s soccer team at the Olympics. Once again, the club was on the look out for a head coach, and that position was filled by Predrag Radosavljevic, a Serbian American who went by the ‘Preki’. He represented the USA at the 1998 World Cup and had been an assistant coach at Chivas the season before.

While most saw the appointment of Preki as a step backwards from Bradley and didn’t see the club emulating what had done in 2006, they were in for a surprise. In fact, 2007 would be the clubs most successful season in their short history. The club went on to win their only piece of silverware, when the won the Western Conference title, just pipping Houston Dynamo by one point. The club recorded fifteen wins, eight draws and seven wins that season and qualified for the MLS play-offs whilst also qualifying for the 2008 US Open Cup. One of the main reasons for their success was the goalscoring exploits of Cuban, Mikyel Galindo who scored twelve goals, while American, Ante Razov scored eleven. However, it would only be as good as that. The club would play Kansas City Wizards and would lose a closely fought two-legged tie, 1-0 on aggregate.

For the 2008 season, the club played in their first intercontinental tournament, playing Mexican side, Pachuca. The American side lost 2-1 and would not progress from their group, winning just one game, drawing one game, and losing one game. It was a group that consisted of fellow MLS side, New England Revolution, and Mexican sides, Pachuca, and Santos Laguna. It was a competition that was founded in 2007, but abolished in 2010, due to lack of interest. The club would finish runners up that season in the Western Conference, and for the third consecutive season, qualify for the MLS Play-offs. They finished runners-up to Houston Dynamo, winning twelve, drawing seven and losing eleven games. But it would be Deja-vu for the Californian club, as they crashed out in the first round to Real Salt Lake, losing 3-2 on aggregate.

The 2009 season saw another good performance on the field for the club, finishing 4^th out of the eight clubs now competing in the Western Conference. They finished a respectable 6^th in the overall standing that season as well. It meant they qualified for the MLS play-offs through the wild card route, and in the first round they would meet city rivals LA Galaxy. But in true Chivas style, the club would fail to get past this round once again, losing 3-2 on aggregate.

It was in November 2009 when the club went through another managerial change, hiring Martin Vaquez. It proved be a disastrous season for the Goats, ad they finished bottom of the Western Conference, winning eight games, drawing four and losing eighteen. It was the start of the end for the club, as things started to unravel on and off the pitch.

On August 29^th, 2012, Vergara and his wife took full ownership of club, buying out all other shareholders. It was then alleged that he fired some of the youth coaches and let go of some of their youth players due to them not being able to speak Spanish. One coach, Ted Chronopoulos claimed that when he was in charge of the youth set-up, he was asked by then President of the club, Jose David, for a list of players and staff of who could and could not speak Spanish.

From the time Preki was in charge, the club had gone through a further six coaches, with none of them able to impress Vergara not the fans. First Martin Varquez was replaced after just one season and replaced by Robin Fraser who was hired on January 4^th, 2011. Fraser didn’t improve things on the field for the club and they finished 8^th out of the nine clubs competing in the Western Conference in 2011. The 2012 season was even worse, with the club finishing bottom of the Western Conference, and second last in the overall rankings, finishing 18^th out of nineteen clubs, only finishing above Canadian side, Toronto FC.

Frasrer was subsequently fired and Mexican, Jose Luis Real was hired to take his place for the 2013 season. The managerial change did little to affect the performance on the field, with the club once again finishing bottom of the Western Conference, and second bottom of the overall league. Vergara was getting inpatient with his managers at this point, and it was no surprise when Real was fired. He was replaced by Colombian, Willmer Cabrera. The 2014 season would be a defining one for the club, but for all of the wrong reasons.

While the club made a small improvement on the pitch, finishing 7^th in the Western Conference and 16^th in the overall league, it was off the field were most of the drama was unfolding. It was on February 20^th, 2014, when the MLS announced it had purchased Chivas USA from Vergara and his wife and had planned to look for suitable investors to make sure the club stayed located in the Los Angeles region, whilst still competing in the MLS 2015. Various news stories came out during this time of who those potential investors were going to be. Names like Vicent Tan, the owner of Cardiff City were mentioned in a $100 million dollar takeover, but issues surrounding where he would relocate the club meant the deal never went through. In the end, Chivas USA ceased operations as a senior soccer club on October 27^th, 2014. Their development academy did continue to run until June 2015.

As I previously said in my opening paragraph, Chivas USA are the last club from the modern era of the MLS to have gone defunct, which is a testament to how football has progressed in the United States since then. Vergara, while he may have had the best intentions at the start of this project, was ultimately the reason why it folded. While there is no definite proof that he was in favour of having just Spanish speaking staff and players at the club, he does seem to have been an impatient type of owner, and that showed with the many dismissals he made of his managers in their final years. It seemed like it was out of desperation, when in all fairness the club were struggling on the field. But as we all know, patience is key when it comes to football, and things never stay the same in the world of football. There is no reason why the club couldn’t turned it around and won another Western Conference, and maybe gone one further and gotten past the first round of the play-offs. Maybe if they had off done so at some point in their history then maybe they would have become more stable as a club, with Vergara being less likely to sack his managers. All if’s or but’s and you could put all those hypothetical situations and circumstances to many of the other clubs I have written about in this book. One thing is for certain, there is no shortage of support for soccer in California, with LA Galaxy doing well over the last decade and the emergence of LA FC in 2018. There is also the San Jose Earthquakes. Let’s not forget them. Is there room for a fourth Californian soccer club? Could Chivas USA make a return at some point in the future? Probably not. Although, with the number of clubs being added to the MLS every year, and the expansion of the league, who knows? Still, we never forget them regardless.