WVHooligan - Soccer Blog

Few rivalries in Major League Soccer are this good. Seriously. I suppose its all due to the fact that the two clubs share a stadium that was originally just mean to be for one team. Or maybe its the fact that one club is more American and the other is Mexican in its roots. Either way you spin it these two clubs hate one another.

Thus the SuperClasico is here for the third and final time this season between LA and Chivas USA.

The Galaxy will be led by interim boss Cobi Jones, who has taken over after the departure this week of Ruud Gullit. He will be trying to put an end to a seven-game winless streak in his first game in charge. Chivas USA has stumbled in their last couple games and in the SuperClasico this season. Needless to say, both clubs need points to stay in the hunt for the MLS Playoffs. If those said playoffs were to start today both clubs would be on the outside looking in. So a win tonight could push one of them back up the standings, at least for a couple days.

Right now Chivas is banged up and will be without their best player (Sasha Kljestan who probably is still in China). The lineup probably won’t include Claudio Suarez, Jonathan Bornstein, Alecko Eskandarian or Ante Razov. LA doesn’t nearly have the injury issues as Chivas does but they are just in a funk right now. Their offense hasn’t looked in sync in recent weeks and their defense is well…their defense.

This game always breads well for the Galaxy though. Sure Chivas has played well in recent memory (mostly last year) but I just don’t see them pulling through on this one tonight. I think LA, even with the coaching shake-up of this week will pull together around Cobi Jones and beat Chivas.

Its weird how this rivalry causes some jobs to be lost, even before the game is played.

If Chivas was even remotely healthy I would take them in a heart beat right now but after looking at everything you have to sometimes take funk over injuries. Chivas has proved they can win without some big guns in their line up but doing it in a rivalry game is a whole other issue. I want to see it happen before I go out and say they will win.

I think David Beckham and Landon Donovan will have a big game tonight. Its on Primetime and front and center (even though everyone will be watching Michael Phelps win another gold medal).

WVH Prediction: LA 3, Chivas 1