Chivas can clinch playoff spot with win in Colorado and help

Soccer Betting Lines

09/15/2007 - Commerce City, CO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - "Chivas is a very good team with a great atmosphere and my goal is to get all the way to playoffs and we're proving right now that we're the best team in Major League Soccer," CD Chivas USA reserve forward Laurent Merlin told MLSnet.com after the team's Super Clasico win over the Los Angeles Galaxy on Thursday.

D.C. United might have something to say about that comment, but few can argue that the Goats belong in that class right now.

"It's massive for the club, massive for the fans. We've been taking a beating from those guys for a couple of years and eventually it was going to turn," Chivas forward Ante Razov said after the win against the Galaxy. "It can't go on forever. We showed that right now we're the better team in Los Angeles. We're happy with that and we're proud of that."

Chivas can clinch a playoff spot while also severely damaging the Colorado Rapids chances of making it with a league win at Dick's Sporting Goods Park Sunday afternoon.

A loss would be the Rapids second-straight, after losing to the Galaxy 3-1 in Los Angeles last weekend. With the defeat, the Rapids dropped into a ninth- place tie with Columbus in the eight team playoff bracket, meaning the team has some points to make up.

"They created four or five chances and finished three. We created five, six chances and got one," Colorado coach Fernando Clavijo said of the L.A. loss.

One thing going for it is Colorado gets surging Chivas at home. The Goats are an MLS best 9-0-2 at home, but just 4-6-4 on the road although they are 3-1 in their last four.

After Sunday's league fixture, Chivas hosts Kansas City next Saturday while the Rapids travel to Real Salt Lake the same day.

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FOOTBALL TRASH TALK

NFL Football Trash Talk

Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).

Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.

Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).

Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.

Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.

The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.

What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.

Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.

But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.

In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.