CHIVAS USA: MORE THAN JUST POP IDOLS.

Byline: IVAN OROZCO

Staff Writer

CARSON - Claudio Suarez walked away from the practice field eating a paleta.

The Chivas USA defender sucked the lemon-lime flavored Mexican popsicle after taking it from an vendor's ice cream cart. The fans waved Suarez down. He stopped and briefly talked with them about the upcoming Major League Soccer season.

It's not every day that a professional athlete casually takes a moment to chat with fans, yet alone while he's feasting on a popsicle.

Chivas USA bringing a paletero, the Spanish word for popsicle vendor, to practice is part of the team sticking to its Mexican roots.

Suarez chatting with fans is part of the youngest MLS team in Los Angeles trying to appeal to the local market, mostly the Latino community.

Chivas USA didn't go chasing after the best available world-superstar to catch international attention after its inner-town rival Galaxy announced it had signed David Beckham.

Instead, it's trying to put a competitive team on the field, create a stadium atmosphere similar to those in Mexico, South and Central America, and have a strong presence in the community. All this while honoring the 100-year history of its mother team -Chivas de Guadalajara -the same way it has since the franchise's insertion to the 11-year-old MLS in 2005.

"I don't know what (the Galaxy) is doing," said Antonio Cue, co-owner of Chivas USA along with Mexican businessman Jorge Vergara, who also owns the 11-time Mexican League champion Chivas de Guadalajara. "All I know is that they are spending a lot of money on a marvelous player. They are trying to reach a lot of people through a star. We don't have one star. We have eleven stars and we are trying to reach the people through sharing the values of this institution."

"We're a team with Mexican spirit, with Mexican and Latino beliefs but at the same time open to immigrants."

The current Chivas USA roster has players born in the United States, Mexico, Colombia, Honduras, Cuba, England and Romania, perhaps reflecting Los Angeles County's diversity.

Chivas USA will bring some of that international flavor to the San Fernando Valley for the first time when it hosts Real Salt Lake featuring teenage phenom Freddy Adu 7:30 tonight in a preseason exhibition match at Granada Hills High's John Elway Stadium.

Cue's team traded its MLS designated player slot to the New York Red Bull for Honduran midfielder Amado Guevara, while the Galaxy used its slot to obtain Beckham from Spanish Primera League perennial power Real Madrid.

Chivas USA is using its uniform's red and white vertical stripes to attract its target audience: the followers of the Chivas brand and culture. But at the same time it wants to reach the different Latino communities with its multi-national roster.

The franchise began to attract a Mexican audience by bringing in a handful of popular veteran players from the Mexican League. Players such as midfielder Ramon Ramirez in the team's inaugural season, striker Francisco "Paco" Palencia and Suarez this season to name a few.

With its brand and a short list of Mexican seasoned players, Chivas USA has recorded one sellout (a 2-1 win against the Galaxy last season) at the Home Depot Center in three seasons.

"I know part of the reason I'm here is to attract the Mexican fan,"

Suarez said in Spanish. "But we can't worry about that too much because we got to give this team its own identity. We can't depend only on Guadalajara fans. This team is different. We know the majority of or fans are Latinos but if you don't win, there won't have a full stadium."

Chivas USA's attendance averaged 19,840 last year, the second highest in the league behind the Galaxy's 20,814.

That's another reason Chivas USA will continue with its tradition and culture on the field while trying to attract more fans.

But it doesn't end there. That same brand is being used to help the franchise team up with local youth soccer clubs and semipro developmental clubs such as the San Fernando Valley-based Real So Cal and San Fernando Valley quakes. Chivas USA recently partnered with both organizations to help prime and try to develop local talent into Chivas USA's youth developmental teams ranging from U-15 to U-19

"Chivas USA coming here promotes soccer in our community," said Juan Florez, who is the San Fernando Quakes head coach and works with the boys U-16 Real So Cal club.

"That's what many communities in the United States need. There's a tremendous amount of talent out there and you don't have to go very far to find it."

Florez has coached sin several area teams since coming here from Barranquilla, Colombia in 1986, including at Cal State Northridge.

Real So Cal has more than 45 teams and 750 players competing in U-9 teams to U-19 travel teams and more than 1,500 young athletes playing in recreational leagues.

The San Fernando Valley Quakes, which practices at Pierce College of Woodland Hills and plays its home games at Granada Hills High, is a member of the United Soccer League's Premier Developmental League.

"Not everyone has a chance to play for a university and play in front of a team's scout," Cue said. "Fotbol is born in the barrios. That's where their soccer is created worldwide and where there can be talented players that might not have the resources to showcase their skills.

"We want reach the people through sports and through sports we believe we can help the community be better people. We will work in every corner of Los Angeles and other cities when we can. We can't take our team everywhere but the idea is to take it to where our real fan base is, the grass roots of what is the Chivas fan."

And it starts with the younger fans.

"One of the most important initiatives is that when we came here to California we started by opening youth academies," said Dennis te Kloese, Chivas USA's Director of Soccer. "(Real So Cal) is a very professional organization. They're obviously in an area that is very important for us because there are a lot of Hispanics and a lot of Mexican fan base. I think working with them will help us find some of the players that fit in our system that help us in the long term.

te Kloese said Chivas USA's youth academies, youth developmental teams and tryouts attract more than 80-percent Latinos, the majority of Mexican or Mexican-American decent.

That proved to be true in open tryouts held by the club in Bell Gardens throughout February and early this month, attracting more than 2,000 hopefuls, most of them Latinos.

Aldo Iniguez of Guadalajara, who is staying with family in San Fernando is one of five finalists in the tryouts and the only one trying to earn a chance at a contract with Chivas USA team. He got a taste of what it will take to play for Chivas USA and be part of its culture during his first day of training earlier this week. He made his way off the practice field eating a paleta of the same flavor as Suarez, who waved at fans as he headed off the same field.

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Photo:

Chivas USA's, from left, Amado Guevara, Jesse Marsch, Ramon Ramirez, Brad Guzan and Jonathan Bornstein pose with Sueno MLS participants.

Juan Miranda/Chivas USA

Box:

CHIVAS USA vs. REAL SALT LAKE