In a night when Mexican midfielder Francisco Mendoza became the first player in franchise history to play 100 regular-season games with Chivas USA, the Red-and-White fell short and lost 3-2 against the Kansas City Wizards on Saturday night in front of 9,597 fans at CommunityAmerica BallPark in Kansas City.
The result left the Red-and-White with a record of 6-8-4 (W-L-T) and 22 pts, in fifth place in the Western Conference, one point behind the LA Galaxy, Chivas USA’s next opponent on Thursday night at The Home Depot Center.
Kansas City’s Sasha Victorine scored the first goal of the match at the 22nd minute of play and Claudio Lopez added the second one 22 minutes later to give the home team the lead at halftime. Davy Arnaud scored the third and decisive goal of the match at the 58th minute. Chivas USA came back in the second half with goals from Carey Talley (72nd) and Justin Braun (82nd) but it wasn’t enough to get the tie.
The Red-and-White were missing several players due to injury: FW Ante Razov (L knee sprain); FW Alecko Eskandarian (sports hernia surgery); FW Maykel Galindo (sports hernia surgery); MF Jonathan Bornstein (left thigh strain); DF Claudio Suarez (concussion); MF Jorge Flores (right ankle); DF Alex Zotinca (R knee ACL surgery); and MF Raphael Wicky (R ankle surgery).Chivas USA FW Roberto Nurse made his MLS debut and recorded his second team appearance after playing with the Red-and-White in SuperLiga against Santos Laguna on July 16th. FW Justin Braun (L knee contusion) made his first appearance since the game against the LA Galaxy on July 10th.
Midfielder Paulo Nagamura missed the match due to a yellow-card accumulation suspension.
Head Coach Preki served the second game of a two-match suspension and will be at the bench against the LA Galaxy on Thursday.Chivas USA wore for the first time in the season its second uniform: white and red stripes with white shorts and white socks.
Chivas USA Head Coach Preki, on Saturday’s match: “We had a very descent second half, at the end we were very unlucky not the take a point because after being 3-2 we had two or three chances to get the tie. Kevin [Hartman] made very good saves. I think our team showed a lot of character, we went up and down, we didn’t quit. We created chances.”
The Red-and-White will return home on Thursday, August 14 for the final Honda Super Clásico of the regular season, against the Los Angeles Galaxy at 8:00 p.m PT. For more information, or to purchase tickets to the match, please call 1-877-CHIVAS-1 or visit https://63.193.83.3/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.cdchivasusa.com/.
