On Aug. 29, Jorge Vergara announced he was taking full control of the Chivas USA, and Tuesday he held his first press conference discussing his actions.
The owner of the Red-and-White expressed his plans of returning Chivas USA to the more successful 106-year-old Chivas de Guadalajara roots. Vergara expressed that the Goats would adapt the same philosophy of Chivas. He also said that they would improve scouting and focus efforts on Mexican-American players in Southern California.
Vergara also introduced the Chivas lean organizational structure and said the most important urgent action was to find a new head coach, upgrade the talent on the roster and to have “a team of people that identifies with the goals and objects of Chivas USA.”
When asked where Chivas USA got off track, Vergara said, “To begin with, it got divorced from Chivas Mexico. Instead of using all the knowledge and all the support and all the structure from Chivas Mexico, they stopped using it.”
This included an offer of a one-year lone of Javier Fernandez “Chicharito.” Fernandez, considered one of the best players in the world, who is currently playing for Manchester United, but coaches and administration at the time claimed he was not good enough to play for the flailing Chivas USA team.
Vergara went on to say that he felt that the Chivas tried to “imitate the MLS style of play, which is more physical because of the athletic qualities of the US players, and they forgot to use the technical advantage and the speed of the Hispanic players.”
Moving forward, Vergara is relying on help and supervision from Johan Cryuff for advice on identifying potential head coaches, roster changes and the help of board members in the community to to identify and broaden their marketing efforts.
Vergara anticipates the hiring of a new coach in the next 7 to 10 days.
“We need to start aligning a new team and the one responsible [for hiring of a new coach] will be Johan Cryuff,” Vergara said. “We have candidates from Mexico, Argentina, and Holland.”
In the first press conference for the 8-year-old club’s new owner, Vergara committed to aligning his organization with the same philosophy of his more successful club in Guadalajara, and also outlined his main goal for the club.
“My goal at this moment is to be able to hire the right people and be able to have the right players come to the US to Chivas USA.”
