Robin Fraser understands better than most what his Chivas USA team will be up against Saturday afternoon against Real Salt Lake. The Goats' head coach was part of the braintrust that changed Utah's team from something of a joke to MLS Cup champion to, by nearly every account, the finest side Major League Soccer has known.
He's making his first trek as Chivas' boss to Rio Tinto Stadium, and the chance to match wits with his former boss, RSL coach Jason Kreis -- and see his family, which is still in Park City -- makes this a rather special occasion.
"It'll be great," Fraser said before heading to Salt Lake City on Friday afternoon. "It'll be good to spend some time with my family, and we have a number of friends that we're looking forward to seeing and that sort of thing.
"And then with regard to the game itself, it'll be strange for a little, and then, really, it will just come down to the game, and the fact of the matter is it's a game against a really good opponent and a good opponent to test ourselves, and we feel like we're doing some things well, and now we get the best team in the league to see if we can do things well against them, as well."
It might be an emotional homecoming for Fraser, 44, a former star defender in Major League Soccer who joined Kreis' staff midway through the 2007 campaign and quickly became the RSL coach's most influential assistant coach, but he's far more analytical than he is emotional -- "At the end of the day, [going to Salt Lake] is so not about me," he says -- and it's the tactical fight that he's most looking forward to.
"This is a team I've known for a long time, so personally, if you could put what's in my mind in my players' minds, it would be a different story ...," Fraser said. "How do we match up? It'll be an extremely challenging match for us, because they are extremely technical, extremely composed and have a ton of experience on their side. Most of the key components of that team have played together for about three years now. And we're going on three months."
It is, he says, "as tall a challenge as we're going to face all season."
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