🐐 Chivas' novela continues as key figure may exit stage left

Veljko Paunović is reportedly leaving. Can Chivas avoid being a nostalgia act?

In the mid-2000s, Mexican teenagers were enthralled by a telenovela called Rebelde. Set in a fancy boarding school and aired midday, the show was the go-to for many kids who came home from their own schools and wanted a heightened version of adolescent drama.

In a brilliant stroke of marketing, the actors from the show also formed a musical group, RBD, which, like the show, enjoyed enormous success.

Rebelde was a novela, so of course there was drama. It is an ever-present like death, taxes or Helvetica logo rebrands. And that is how drama feels around Chivas de Guadalajara as well.

The team crashed out of the Leagues Cup in the group stage and has won one match since then in eight tries. It is on a six-match winless skid in Liga MX play.

Each week, manager Veljko Paunović comes out and says there isn’t a crisis in the club. After all, this is a team that made the final last tournament and still sits in eighth in the table despite the struggles.

Yet, drama just keeps finding Chivas. After a 1-1 draw with Toluca this weekend, three players including struggling star Alexis Vega and regular starter Cristian Calderon were suspended for breaking team rules.

As often happens with Chivas, the general club statement about the indiscipline was supplemented with rumors from reporters around the team, including vague references and innuendo about what may have occurred and who may or may not have participated.

Despite that, the historic team had a perfect chance to right the ship this weekend. Chivas hosts Atlas on Saturday in the Clasico Tapatio. A win against would see them vault past their crosstown rival, further ease the wounds of a 4-0 Clasico Nacional loss to América and put the team within touching distance of clinching the playoffs - and maybe even earning home-field advantage.

And then another dramatic moment happened. Global transfer insider Fabrizio Romano reported that Paunović will soon be on the move to Spain to take over Almería, with the Spanish club paying the manager’s exit clause and leaving Chivas in the lurch.

Around an hour later, Pauno was sitting in front of a Chivas backdrop wearing a Chivas shirt and answering questions about the team’s performance, the suspensions and everything, it seems, except his future.

“I simply want to say that today I’m here to answer everything about the game, the Clasico Tapatio, everything concerning the team. I’m not going to speak about anything else,” he said at that news conference when asked about the links to Almeria.

Would you blame him for going?

Not only would he be heading off to coach in one of the top leagues in the world, he’d be doing so at a team where he used to play. He’d leave Chivas in the midst of a crisis, sure, but his only full tournament would be one in which he got the team to the verge of a championship.

A title seems very far from Chivas’ grasp at this moment. While sporting director Fernando Hierro looked to have gotten things right with his appointment of Paunović, his summer signings haven’t been able to help the team as Vega and Victor “Pocho” Guzman flounder in their quests to match last tournament’s form.

Chivas need a long-term fix, something that may well be underway. For it to truly reach the heights it did in the past, it needs to turn its academy into the best in Mexico, and perhaps in the Americas. It needs to find continuity in the direction of its first team, retaining managers who have success and convincing top domestic players in Liga MX that Chivas can be a springboard to a career in Europe like it was for Chicharito and Carlos Vela. Of course, it needs to actually become that springboard again. And it needs to find a way to break out of the cycle of drama.

RBD currently are on a reunion tour, tapping into the nostalgia of those former teens who are now approaching middle-age and have money to spend on concerts. I’m sure it’s a good night out, singing along to songs you loved with old friends next to you in the crowd and up on stage as well.

Chiavs, too, is great at capturing the warm feeling of the good ol’ days, and they take it on tour, too. The Rose Bowl should be full for the friendly match against Clásico rival América during the international break this month, no matter who is coaching the team or which player travels or doesn’t.

And why not? The glory days were indeed full of glory. The days of an all-Mexican team topping Boca Juniors in a Copa Libertadores quarterfinal series or a second-leg smashing of Toros Neza to win a championship at the Estadio Jalisco were fun.

It also plays on the sentiments of many of its legion of fans in the United States. A club that fields only Mexican players, Chivas is the cultural touchstone, the connection to Mexico for thousands of young people who were born in the U.S. or immigrated when they were very young.

There are beautiful traditions wound up in Chivas fandom.

Winning has not truly been a part of that tradition for some time. Even the Matias Almeyda era was a full six years ago, with the league title in 2017 and the Concacaf Champions League victory the year that followed breaking long title droughts for a Guadalajara side that had been floundering.

Nostalgia works for a band or a TV show. It won’t be as good as the original, but who cares? Actors’ checks clear, fans enjoy the memories and everyone goes home happy.

Sports teams, on the other hand, demand a constant pursuit of improving, of getting better, of being good now not having been good 20 years ago.

The RBD tour has sold out venues all over the United States, Brazil (where the band and show were wildly popular) and Mexico, closing out in Mexico City with a pair of shows at Foro Sol and a final night at the Estadio Azteca. It will take place after the date of the Liga MX final to avoid a potential scheduling clash

In Guadalajara, the tour managers avoided conflict by booking the Estadio Tres de Marzo for a pair of shows on November 26 and 27 when the Liguilla will be at the play-in and quarterfinal stage.

Maybe their plans are flexible. It looks like Civas’ home the Estadio Akron may not be in use on those dates, and their fans are plenty familiar with welcoming nostalgia acts.