Back Home, Hoping to End Skid

In the fall of 2003, Hans Westerhof coached Chivas of Guadalajara to a 2-0 victory over the San Jose Earthquakes in an exhibition at San Jose.

Afterward, the Dutchman was asked his opinion of the Earthquakes.

“They need to do a little less running and a little more thinking,” Westerhof said of the 2001 and 2003 Major League Soccer champions. “Football isn’t always about running.”

Today, the Earthquakes will again be on the opposite side of the field and Westerhof will again be on the bench, but this time as coach of Chivas USA, not Chivas of Guadalajara.

There is an immense difference.

The MLS club is 1-9-2, is winless in its last six games and is coming off a 5-2 drubbing by the Fire at Chicago in a game that Chivas led, 2-1, at the half.

Were heads hanging after that loss?

“Of course their heads were hanging, and I think that’s normal,” Westerhof said Friday afternoon at the Home Depot Center. “You need one day to clear your head, and then we started again.”

Westerhof is running two-a-day practice sessions several times a week.

“I’d like to do it at least six weeks more to get a better level of fitness,” he said.

Getting the team in better physical shape is the priority, not that former coach Thomas Rongen was to blame in that regard.

“There are so many things to make better, and you have to start” somewhere, said Westerhof, who has opted for a two-pronged approach.

“I said, ‘Let’s do two things,’ ” he said. “First of all our physical level, and second that we have a little bit more understanding when we have the ball. We have to fight a lot to get the ball, and then we lose it too quickly.”

Instead of less running, more thinking, now Westerhof wants more running and more thinking.

And if that doesn’t work, there is always the list.

“Thomas and I made a list of what positions we need perhaps new players,” Westerhof said.

It was suggested that it might be a long list, but Westerhof did not rise to the bait.

“No, no, no,” he said. “Perhaps it is a long list, but not for now, it is also for the future. You have to be ready when there is an opportunity, a possibility,” of getting a new player.

One name that has been mentioned is that of Juan Pablo Garcia, playing for Atlas in Mexico but a free agent next month.

“We talked with Juan Pablo,” Westerhof said. “I’ve known him a long time. He was on the Olympic team. He is creative, and he can read the game.”

Meanwhile, assistant coach Javier “Zully” Ledesma is in Mexico scouting potential acquisitions.

Chivas USA might be struggling at the moment, but changes are coming.

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TODAY

vs. San Jose, 5 p.m., FSNW

Site -- Home Depot Center.

Radio -- 830.

Records -- Chivas USA 1-9-2, Earthquakes 3-3-5.

Record vs. Earthquakes -- 0-0-1.

Update -- Chivas USA will be bolstered by the return of defender Douglas Sequeira, who was playing for Costa Rica in two World Cup qualifying games. The team might be without defender Armando Begines, however, after Begines turned his left ankle during training Friday. The teams played to a 3-3 tie at San Jose on April 9.