Club Deportivo Chivas USA (short form: Chivas USA) is a professional football club based in Carson, California that participates in Major League Soccer. The club, founded in 2004, plays its home games at The Home Depot Center, sharing it with the Los Angeles Galaxy. The team shares the same colors of red, white, blue, and gold as its parent Club Deportivo Guadalajara, a popular team in Mexico.
The first coach of Chivas USA was Thomas Rongen. However, after Chivas' 1–8–1 start (their sole win coming against fellow expansion club Real Salt Lake), Rongen was fired and replaced with Hans Westerhof. Following the conclusion of the 2005 campaign, former MetroStars and Chicago Fire head coach Bob Bradley was announced as the replacement for Westerhof. Under coach Bradley, the 2006 season saw a major turnaround for Chivas, which finished in third place in the MLS Western Conference after finishing last with the worst record in league history the season prior. Coach Bradley left after one season to manage both the United States men's national soccer team and the United States U-23 men's national soccer team, and was replaced by Preki.
The team's main supporter group is primarily Latino, or more specifically Mexican. Vergara has promised that, although the team may not be composed entirely of Latin players, the team's main language will be Spanish. This is evidenced in the team's marketing slogan for its inaugural campaign in 2005, "Adiós soccer. ¡El fútbol está aquí!", which translates to "Goodbye soccer, football is here!" Since 2006, Chivas USA's marketing slogan has been "Chivas USA: Está en Tu Sangre", or in its English version, "Chivas USA: It's in Your Blood".
100-Hour Game
In August 2006, in line with the centennial anniversary of its parent club, Chivas and Chivas USA jointly organized a football match that lasted 100 hours, in the city of Bell Gardens, CA. The match was composed of two teams, "Chivas" and "The Rest of the World"--both teams were composed of current players of both clubs, former Chivas de Guadalajara players, Mexican and Mexican-American politicians, organizations, Mexican celebrities, etc. The Game began August 9th and ended on August 13th with "Chivas" beating "The Rest of the World" 437-429. |