This match promises to be a dogfight. The season series between the Los Angeles Galaxy and the Houston Dynamo featured exactly one goal and a lot of physical defending. If that sounds a lot like what Chivas and the Galaxy went through for the bulk of their five games this season, its not coincidence.

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Who will Chivas protect this year? (Getty Images)

Yesterday we started our look at the expansion draft and who teams will and won't protect for this month's upcoming draft. The Philadelphia Union get ten players to pick from and this year will be as tough as any to predict who will stay and who will be left exposed.

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The man of the moment for the Galaxy

For a moment Donovan Ricketts looked like he was going to burst a blood vessel after the Chivas attack had carved up the LA defense again and again. After he saved a sure goal from Maicon Santos he launched into a tirade against his defenders. His fury was absolutely justified at those bunch of clowns.

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Chivas USA 2 Galaxy 2

An entertaining if error-ridden game with all four goals coming from unmitigated howlers has ended all square.

Alan Gordon missed a trio of chances for the Galaxy after coming on a as a second half sub that could have made the difference, but Chivas USA had their own burden to bear with striker Justin Braun seemingly intent on giving away virtually every ball he touched.

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Chivas USA 1 Dynamo 3

Chivas USA have pulled one back eight minutes after the Dynamo made it 3-0.

Justin Braun was the creator sending over a cross to the far post that was met by Paulo Nagamura who set up Michael Lahoud for a simple tap in in the 59th minute.

Sensing an opportunity, Preki has sent in Eduardo Lillingston for Maicon Santos up front with about 30 minutes left in the game.

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Chivas USA 0 Houston Dynamo 3

This one really is over now. Paulo Nagamura uncharacteristically lost the ball in the box, Dynamo midfielder Geoff Cameron took advantage and fed Abe Thompson who put the ball in the net at the far post for the third Dynamo goal.

This will be Chivas USA's worst home loss of the year if the result stands.

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A full slate of MLS games returns for the penultimate weekend of play after the WCQ break with the Galaxy on the road against the Dynamo (noon Sunday TeleFutura) and Chivas USA at home Saturday against the San Jose Earthquakes (7:30 p.m. KAZA, delayed 11:15 p.m. Prime), a team that returns to L.A.

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Game story.

Playoff tickets are on sale starting at $15. Call 1-877-CHIVAS-1.

Chivas USA - Zach Thornton, Carey Talley, Yamith Cuesta, Claudio Suarez (Mariano Trujillo 46), Ante Jazic, Jesus Padilla (Jesse Marsch 46), Michael Lahoud (Eduardo Lillingston 55), Paulo Nagamura, Sacha Kljestan, Justin Braun, Maykel Galindo,

Substitutes Not Used: Chukwudi Chijindu, Jon Conway, Jorge Flores, Shavar Thomas

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CD Guadalajara 2 Chivas USA 0

I "watched" this one on TV and this description of the alleged action by reporter Phil Collin is apt: "The first half was like a family reunion with everyone sitting in the living room trying to dream up something to talk about."

Still, that didn't prevent a Chivas USA player from suffering a potentially serious injury (bet Preki is thrilled with that).

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Major League Soccer's disciplinary committee gave additional one-game suspensions to Chivas USA midfielder Marcelo Saragosa and Houston assistant coach John Spencer after both were sent off during their teams' games this past weekend.

Saragosa was issued an extra game to his suspension for kicking Seattle Sounders forward Fredy Montero in the face.

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Seattle Sounders 0 Chivas USA 0

Seattle Coach Sigi Schmid threw out the first pitch Friday at the Mariners-Yankees game. (AP Photo)

Ghastly offense (as usual), generally excellent defense (as is customary) gave Chivas USA the road point today.

Marcelo Saragosa excepted, of course, after throwing the most blatant kung fu kick at a soccer game since Eric Cantona.

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Desde el XBOX Pitch at Qwest Field, Seattle, WA. -12:00: Estas son las alineaciones: Los Sounders FC: Kasey KELLER(c)-James RILEY, Jhon Kennedy HURTADO, Tyrone MARSHALL, Leo GONZÁLEZ, Sebastien LE TOUX, Osvaldo ALONSO, Peter VAGENAS, Steve ZAKUANI- Fredy MONTERO, LJUNGBERG.CD Chivas USA: Zach THORNTON-Marcelo SARAGOSA, Jonathan BORNSTEIN, Yamith CUESTA, Ante JAZIC- Jesús PADILLA, Michael LAHOUD, Paulo NAGAMURA(c), [. Click to continue reading...

Chivas USA 1 New England Revolution 0

This one slowed to a crawl after about the 12th minute - literally, I should add with player after player crawling around on the grass apparently injured.

To be fair, Chivas USA scored in the 10th minute through Maicon Santos and saw Paulo Nagamura and Sacha Kljestan each hit the post, but that was about it for action.

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A cool, overcast Sunday brunchtime at Home Depot Center that's perfect for soccer.

It's Chivas USA's first game in two weeks and they'll be hoping to fare better than their intra-stadium rivals last night who had returned from a similar layoff.

Significant absences for both teams today with Revs midfielder Shalrie Joseph missing because of the red card he received in New England's 4-2 defeat to the Kansas City Wizards last weekend, while Chivas USA striker Maykel Galindo is also missing after getting sent off in the 1-0 loss to the Galaxy Aug.

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Landon Donovan and Paulo Nagamura battle in the third and last SuperClasico of the year. (Getty Images)

We have another loaded week of soccer ahead of us. Week 24 got off to a bang earlier in the week in Salt Lake as Real Salt Lake got their playoff chances back on track with a resounding 4-0 blowout of expansion mates Chivas USA.

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Chivas USA 2 Toronto 0

A scrappy little shutout win that at times wasn't necessarily pretty, but did the trick going into next weekend's SuperClasico against the Galaxy (Chivas USA also travels to Real Salt Lake Wednesday).

Sacha Kljestan had his first two goals of the season and it should have been more for Chivas USA - substitute Paulo Nagamura should have scored with only the goalkeeper to beat about four minutes from time.

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Part two of the expansion draft preview. The Eastern conference was covered yesterday, and can be found here.
CHIVAS USA
Protected Available Exempt Jonathan Bornstein Chukwudi Chijindu
Justin Braun Yamith Cuesta
Bobby Burling Jim Curtin
Maykel Galindo Jorge Flores
Sacha Kljestan Kevin Harmse
Michael Lahoud Ante Jazic
Jesse Marsch
Dan Kennedy
Paulo Nagamura
Eduardo Lillingston
Shavar Thomas
Gerson Mayen
Zach Thornton
Jesus Padilla
Mariano Trujillo Lance Parker
Ante Razov
Maicon Santos
Marcelo Saragosa
Bojan Stepanovic
Claudio Suarez
Carey Talley
Lawson Vaughn
Sasha Victorine
Cesar Zamora
If this list of players seems larger than normal to you, then you're right. Click to continue reading...

Rapids striker Conor Casey scored his ninth, 10th and 11th goals against Chivas USA on Saturday. (photo by Jonathan Ingraham/ColoradoSoccerNow.com)

When defensive midfielder Pablo Mastroeni scores, the Colorado Rapids need to make it count.

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Apparently trying to beef up a wimpy midfield, Chivas USA today sent Atiba Harris to Dallas in exchange for midfielder Marcelo Saragosa, who played for the Galaxy from 2004-2006.

Here's a sprawling Saragosa playing against once and former teammate Paulo Nagamura last year in this Daily Breeze file photo.

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And those words are: I'll take it.

The Galaxy put together their longest winning streak of the year at three, all 1-0 victories, all against tough teams (Houston, New England, Chivas), though you could argue that this is turning out to be a kind of lost season for the Revs. The scoreline is starting to remind me of the increasingly iconic 2-0 result that the US MNT always seems to get in huge games.

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David Beckham returned to Southern California Friday, but after making an appearance in El Segundo today with former Real Madrid teammate Zinedine Zidane will watch from the AEG suite.

That means the Galaxy make just one change to the unit that beat New England 1-0 last time out with Landon Donovan returning from national team duty to take his usual spot in midfield at the exprense of Eddie Lewis.

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Here are my votes in the media balloting for the 2009 Major League Soccer All-Star team:

GOALKEEPER (1)
Kasey Keller, Seattle Sounders: Although he doesn't have the best stats in the league, he's having the best year.

DEFENDERS (3)
Chad Marshall, Columbus Crew: Scores goals, shuts down opponents, plays clean.

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This past Monday marked the deadline for media ballots for the MLS All-Star Team, meaning I could no longer keep putting off my selections as I tried to choose in some of the toughest all-star selection races in recent memory.

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Finish stuffing those ballots folks, All-Star voting is coming to an end. I've managed to finish my final ballot. Feel free to post you All-Star selections below.

GK: Zach Thornton (Chivas USA)
DF: Mariano Trujillo (Chivas USA), Geoff Cameron (Houston), Wilman Conde (Chicago)
MF: Paulo Nagamura (Chivas USA), Shalrie Joseph (New England), Guillermo Barros Schelotto (Columbus), Osvaldo Alonso (Seattle), Brad Davis (Houston)
FW: Fredy Montero (Seattle), Landon Donovan (Los Angeles)

I know some of my selections may be a bit off from what you may have.

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Charleston Battery 3 Chivas USA 1

Notable:
*Jesse Marsch scored in the 28th minute for Chivas USA to tie the game at one apiece, but it wasn't enough to see the club win a U.S. Open Cup game for the first time in four years.

*Chivas USA goalkeeper Lance Parker made his second start of year after playing last Saturday in SuperLiga against San Luis.

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Apparently South African-born Canadian Kevin Harmse was homesick - for Southern California.

Chivas USA acquired the 24-year-old defensive midfielder from Toronto today for allocation money.

"Kevin is a strong, technical player who can play in both midfield and defense," said Chivas USA Coach Preki.

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The media ballot for the 2009 MLS All-Star Game has finally made its way to my inbox, which means its time to seriously consider which eleven players will be getting votes.

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Chivas USA 0 Tigres 1

Chivas USA have pressed, but haven't really broken down a young, but well-organized Tigres team.

The closest Chivas USA came to an equalizer was when Maykel Galindo flicked on a short ball from Eduardo Lillingston that bounced off Tigres goalkeeper Aaron Fernandez.

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The top two teams in Major League Soccer are set to meet tonight in a mid-week Western Conference clash. Chivas USA, holders of the best record in MLS (8-2-3), take on the Houston Dynamo (6-2-3), the hottest team in the league and riders of an eight match unbeaten streak.

There are plenty of great match-ups in this one, from Stuart Holden vs.

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The Chivas USA blog, Dentro del Rebano, gives a behind the scenes look at the making of their stimulus package commercial. Jesse Marsch, Paulo Nagamura, and Atiba Harris eventually make their way through the entire thing.

That is why they make money to play soccer, not appear in commercials.

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I'm a big Chicago Fire fan, and I thought last year's signing of Jon Busch to play goalkeeper was absolutely inspired. He was a rock at the back, and was named to the MLS Best XI team.
Busch has been more erratic this year, letting in a couple of awful goals from distance. Hopefully his rough patch is behind him, because no Fire fan wants to see more goals like these from Kenny Cooper and Paulo Nagamura. Click to continue reading...

The "Pre" Game: Wow, I knew I was in for an amazing fan experience the minute I walked into HDC and discovered that Chivas USA has a Tequila called Rebano Segrano and that they were selling margaritas made with it. So to set the mood after a very long 2 days of work (about 30 our of last 36 hrs before game I had been at work) Martha and I forked over our $20 and got 2 tasty cold delicious margaritas and sat down in section 101.

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The Chicago Fire remain undefeated in Major League Soccer, beating League leaders Chivas USA 3-2 on Thursday night. Paulo Nagamura put Chivas USA up a goal in the 16th minute, with Chicago equalizing in the 25th through a Cuauhtémoc Blanco penalty. Chivas USA got the lead back when Maykel Galindo converted a penalty in the 37th, and appeared to be on their way to the win. Click to continue reading...

Game story.

Highlights:

Notable: The Fire's 11 game undefeated record to start the season is the longest in club history and the second longest in league history. The title holder: the Galaxy, which posted 12 wins in 1996 (my, my, is that a long time ago now).

Bonus quotes
*Here's Fire Coach Dennis Hamlett on the pivotal last call and his reaction to Preki calling it a dive:

"That's his opinion.

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Chivas USA 1 Chicago Fire 0

Jon Busch apparently hasn't watched enough game tape of Chivas USA's Paulo Nagamura.

Nagamura nailed his fourth goal of the season with a nasty, swerving shot from all of 35 yards out that Busch was far too slow to react to in the 16th minute, although his defense should have also done a better job of shutting down the dangerous Brazilian.

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