Fresh off of officially introducing designated
player signing Nery Castillo, the Chicago Fire travel to Los Angeles to take
on the Galaxy in their first Major League Soccer action since July 8.
"Getting to this day has been a long journey for the Chicago Fire," Chicago
Klopas told mlssoccer.com earlier this week when the Mexican international was
officially introduced. "I can remember over two-and-a-half years ago, when we
in the UK, looking for potential [designated players]. Obviously we all knew
Nery, and we were actually thinking that one day potentially this guy could be
a great addition to the Fire organization."
While Castillo is not expected to start this weekend, he could make an
appearance.
"I come over here with a lot of objectives," he told the league's website. "I
know [Cuauhtemoc Blanco] was here in the past and I'll be trying to [recreate
his individual success] but I want to get a championship with the team. I want
to show my qualities as much as I can so we can get things that the club
deserves to get."
The Fire (4-5-5) have their work cut out for them at The Home Depot Center on
Saturday against the first-placed Galaxy (12-2-4), who are coming off a 2-2
draw with San Jose in their last MLS fixture.
"It's a game that we should have won," Galaxy attacker Landon Donovan said
after the game. "We were the better team, we created a lot more chances.
Getting scored on early was difficult to come back from, but we did a good job
and you had to think if anyone was going to win it had to be us. Our
resiliency was good, it was a good test for us, something we haven't dealt
with a lot this year, going behind a goal and then a goal again, so all in all
it's still okay and we can't really be mad because we played well and just had
a few mistakes."
Galaxy forward Edson Buddle scored his league-leading 12th goal of the season
it the game, and if the Fire are going to be successful, they are going to
have to find a way to shut down the combination of Buddle and Donovan.
"It went in. It was a tough ball. It skipped and was bouncing. It went past
Alan [Gordon] and a defender," Buddle said of his goal. "I had to have a quick
reaction and get it on target. I was lucky to get a foot on to it."
©2010 Sports Network. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
