FRISCO, Texas -- Brad Guzan made five saves for his
MLS-leading 12th shutout of the season to help Chivas USA tie FC
Dallas 0-0 on Thursday night.
Chivas (15-6-7) extended its unbeaten streak to 11 games (7-0-4)
and moved four points ahead of Houston for the Western Conference
lead with two games left for each club. Guzan has the
second-highest shutout total in MLS history, trailing Tony Meola's
league-record 16 with Kansas City in 2000.
With the tie, FC Dallas (13-11-5) has just one victory in its
last six (1-3-2) and is now locked into the West's third seed,
unable to catch Houston for second and comfortably ahead of
Colorado in fourth. Backup goalkeeper Ray Burse, a 23-year-old
rookie, earned his second career shutout in just his fifth MLS
start by turning aside one shot.
With each club having already clinched berths in the upcoming
MLS Cup playoffs, neither displayed much urgency to snap the tie,
although Dallas' Arturo Alvarez had perhaps the match's best
scoring chance in the first minute of injury time, drilling a shot
from the corner of the penalty box past Guzan and off the near-side
post.
Dallas played the final 10-plus minutes a man down after Bobby
Rhine was ejected with a red card, apparently for vociferously
arguing a yellow card issued to Alvarez moments earlier.
Guzan made an impressive diving stop on Kenny Cooper's blast
from the penalty dot in the 72nd minute. He also made a nice kick
save on Abe Thompson, the MLS Player of the Week after scoring two
goals last week, on a partial breakaway in the 43rd minute.
Another game-saving save by Guzan came in the 30th minute, when
he made a diving deflection of Adrian Serioux's left-foot kick from
about 30 yards out in the 30th minute.