I’ve been hemming and hawing about what to say about good ole Chivas USA. I had some ideas. Maybe I’d talk about savoring the little victories, or perhaps it’d be good to say a word for the Great Gringo Hope, El Guzano. But none of that really seemed right.

Then today I was standing in line at the supermarket and there it was. As soon as I saw that gentleman with his son I knew that’s what I wanted to talk about. The kid must have been round about ten years old and it was obvious from the cleats and the uniform that the two of them had just come from the boy’s Saturday morning youth soccer game. Not such an uncommon sight, I know. It was his uniform that impressed me.

A Chivas replica.

See, I am not currently residing in what you’d call a major metropolitan area. Indeed, some people would call it the sticks. But even out here, right there in front of me in the express lane at Safeway, was evidence of the Chivas cachet and magic.

I thought differently at the start of the season. I thought the Chivas de Guadalajara supporters were sophisticated soccer consumers and they’d reject the inferior, ersatz American product. And, well, in part I was right. But at the same time I completely underestimated the Chivas mystique.

That mystique, that aura of prestige – that is what MLS teams must race to achieve for themselves. And in that race CD Chivas USA, one of the worst teams in the history of Major League Soccer, a team that only came into existence this year, has a head start.