Match Day Quick Reference Card: Sounders at Chivas USA

With recent news that Steve Zakuani is not travelling due to "general soreness," it looks like the Sounders will be forced to switch their starting XI for the first time in about a month. 

Sigi apparently said that candidates to replace Zakuani include Roger Levesque, Miguel Montano and Alvaro Fernandez, according to @JoshuaMayers. We're going to go ahead and predict El Flaco gets his first start in Rave Green.

To be sure, that could just be hopeful thinking. Fernandez was kind of noncommital when asked about his fitness this week, other than saying something along the lines of he'll play as much as the coaches ask.

The rest of the Sounders XI seems pretty easy with no big injuries floating around. Schmid seems to really like that central midfield pairing and the results are hard to dispute.

The Chivas USA XI is much more of a crapshoot. They'll start Justin Braun up top, most likely with new addition Giancarlo Maldonaldo. Jonathan Bornstein will almsot certainly be on the left wing and Zach Thornton appears to be the starting goalkeeper again. Other than that, they've been moving guys around an awful lot.

UPDATE: Mike Fucito has been activated from the IR (although isn't traveling) and Brad Evans has taken his place on the IR.

Printer friendly:  Sounders at Chivas USA-2 (print)