General manager Jose Domene has put together two huge deals today and Chivas USA are a better squad for it. To make these deals happen, Domene gave up Heath Pearce and Michael Lahoud, two popular players who ultimately did not fit into his vision for the squad.

It's a bold, but reasonable gamble by Domene. It is true that defender Danny Califf does have many, many miles on his legs and is on the wrong side of 30. It also cannot be denied that Juan Agudelo has not yet shown the consistency and goal tallies that his talent suggests.

True as that made be, the Goats are a better team on May 18 than they were on May 17th. We acquired two players who fit the exact roles this squad needs at the expense of two good players who just didn't fit the mold. More after the jump.

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Chivas USA have been in the middle of the MLS universe today after their double trade of Heath Pearce to New York Red Bulls for Juan Agudelo and Michael Lahoud to the Philadelphia Union for Danny Califf. And people who don't follow Chivas are even saying (mostly) nice things about the moves! What an interesting day.

Here's the full and official rundown of the trades:

Chivas-NYRB

Chivas USA: Receives Juan Agudelo

Red Bulls: Receives Heath Pearce and allocation money (amount is never disclosed per MLS policy). Although this wasn't included in the official press release of the deal, reports swirling around the deal say Chivas also cede to the Red Bulls a portion of a future transfer sale of Agudelo, and will continue to pay for a portion of Heath Pearce's contract this season.

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Yesterday I wrote about the saga of the Philadelphia Union declaring a trade with Chivas USA for Danny Califf complete, while Chivas refused to admit any such trade was ready. It looks like today is the day when the news will finally come out, and there's more of it that you might have expected.

Chivas and Philadelphia have reportedly completed a trade, with Califf coming to Chivas in exchange for midfielder Michael Lahoud. Meanwhile, Chivas have also reportedly completed a trade with the New York Red Bulls, as they have traded Heath Pearce to the Red Bulls in exchange for forward Juan Agudelo. Both deals will apparently include allocation money, with official word from the club that Chivas is sending allocation to New York, but it hasn't yet been confirmed if Chivas is sending allocation money to Philadelphia too, although it seems likely.

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Getting ready for the first edition of the 2012 superclasico? We are over here at The Goat Parade. Chivas USA are set to host the LA Galaxy Saturday evening in their shared home stadium, and it should be a cracking atmosphere. Both teams are coming into the match following a 1-1 draw, and both clubs are pretty disappointed by their early season form. In order to get you caught up on the attitudes surrounding the Galaxy, I talked to Josie Becker, of the SB Nation Galaxy blog LAG Confidential. Thanks very much to Josie for taking the time to answer my questions!

The Goat Parade asks LAG Confidential:

1. It seems the Galaxy are definitely suffering a post-MLS Cup hangover so far this season. Aside from the absence of defender Omar Gonzalez to injury, what accounts for the struggles in 2012?

1. Bruce Arena mentioned in a recent interview that he's aware of what the problem is. In fact, the quote is worth looking at in toto:

"I can give you that answer at the end of the year," he said. "I have a lot of understanding why our issues to date have been what they are, but that’s not anything I will make public right now. I have a very good sense why."

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The rumor going around since this past weekend is that veteran Philadelphia Union defender Danny Califf would be traded to Chivas USA. An initial rumor that Union forward Jack McInerney would be included and it would be in exchange for Chivas forward Juan Pablo Angel has not persisted, but today Union coach Peter Nowak announced during his regular weekly press conference that Califf was indeed headed to Chivas, but offered no other details. He made it clear in his remarks that the deal was done, and the only hurdle left was clearing standard league approval of the deal.

Guess what? When asked for comment today, Chivas coach Robin Fraser and General Manager Jose Domene denied the veracity of Nowak's comments. While they acknowledged reports of ongoing negotiations with Philadelphia, today they denied a deal was complete, according to Scott French over at ESPN LA. Both Fraser and Domene seemed dumfounded that Nowak discussed the negotiations publicly, and they didn't even confirm if Califf is part of the proposed deal, although Fraser did apparently indicate that a deal would probably be complete "by the weekend," according to Adam Serrano on twitter.

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In the past six games, Chivas USA have gone 2-3-1. While their performance on the pitch has been inconsistent, I found a stat that has been dead on when determining the result Chivas will take away from a match. Using a standard statistic tool called the Correlation Coefficient (aka Pearson r test) I found a score of .862 indicating a very strong positive correlation (a correlation value of 1 means there is a perfect correlation).

So what is this telling statistic? It's not goals, saves, and certainly not possession. No, it's clearances. Not a exciting, rah-rah stat by any means, but when the Goats clear the ball, they win. Or at least they don't lose. More after the jump.

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