Rather than have this get a bit lost in the game threads, I thought I'd put this up stand alone (but if a mod wants it back in the game thread, no complaint)
So who are these guys?
They are owned by a serious billionaire, Jorge Vergara. We used to talk a bit about Vergara in TFC's early days, when Chivas USA were a weird experiment and a topic of conversation. Haven't heard his name much since then, he's big in the movie business (which is why he put a team in LA to begin with), but just to remind, the big controversial thing about the Chivas experiment in MLS was that....
Chivas only play Mexican players.
No foreigners. Ever. This is a big deal for them, a major point of pride. Some people love that, for some other people, that stance is out of step with modern life and a major reason to dislike them. There is a Mexican nationalist element to how Chivas see themselves. Sort of like what TFC were trying to do in the beginning by being the "Reds", but multiply by 100 and do it for 100 years. Chivas definitely look down their nose at teams like Tigres and TFC that build with foreign hired guns.
Which makes their choice of Argentine manager
Matias Almeyda weird ... especially since Almeyda does not have a lot of prior managerial experience (he managed at River Plate for a year before joining Chivas and .... that's pretty much it. But Almeyda was a star player. For this with longer memories, he played beside Simeone and in front of Zanetti on the 1998 and 2002 Argentine World Cup teams (he was also in front of Pocchetino in 2002 - those teams produced a lot of managerial talent).
Almeyda had good early success but has been under a lot of pressure lately, because of Chivas' crappy league play this year, but winning the Gran Final might save his job.
Rodolfo Pizarro, their AM, is one of two Guadalajara players that could make the Mexico MNT going to Russia. He has not seen much time with the national team (he played 45 minutes in their last outing v Croatia) but has apparently had a great year at Guadalajara. He cost them $14M in a transfer from Pachuca. That's Pizarro making the interception and doing most of the work on the only goal in the NY tie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqGj5R-moiQ
Oswaldo Alanis is the other potential Mex MNT player on Chivas. He has been a longtime fixture but didn't make it off the bench against Croatia or Iceland last month. He has had a bitter contract dispute with Chivas, which is maybe affecting the team (more on that later). Alanis had the rocket FK that turned the tide in the Seattle-Chivas quarterfinal second leg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bq7LeA_0afI
.......
(more to come later)