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CARSON -- Tristan Bowen was back on the field Wednesday, his first time in a full training session since returning a 2½ weeks ago from Belgium, where he spent eight months on loan to a second-division club.

He's not eligible to return to active duty until the summer transfer window opens June 27, and there's no assurance Chivas will bring him back, but he's out to show head coach Robin Fraser and his staff over the next month that he belongs with the Goats.

Fraser's excited to see how Bowen's game has grown.

“For us,” he said, “it's an opportunity to get a look at a player who's gotten some different experience, some growth experience, and see how he does with us. So we're anxious to get him back on the field.”

Bowen (Van Nuys), 21, was acquired from the Galaxy in December 2010 and played five first-team games for Chivas before KSV Roeselare on a season-long loan last August. He endured the kinds of ups and downs that build players and finished the season with a flourish.

“It was very good for me personally,” he told ESPN Los Angeles after Wednesday's session at Home Depot Center. “I had the chance to get out of the country, experience European football, even though it was the second division. It's been a long eight months. I learned a lot of things, and I think going forward that's definitely going to aid in my progression as a player.”

Bowen made 24 first-team appearances for Roeselare, 13 of them starts, and scored three goals in a league he described as “not as technically sound as here in MLS, but the aggressiveness, I think it's a little bit more over there. There's more challenges, people flying into them. It's just more ... I guess for lack of a better word, more cutthroat. The guys are definitely better here technically. The pace is faster here.”

He was better after winter break, making eight starts in the club's final 16 games -- including four of the final five games -- and scoring three goals.

Off the field, there wasn't a lot to do, and Bowen battled homesickness and loneliness.

“My social life didn't exist,” he said. “I was in a small town an hour outside of Brussels. Everything was quiet. It was completely different from living in Los Angeles, near downtown, where everything's going 100 miles an hour, to go [to Roeselare] and things are slowed down to practically 5 miles an hour.

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CARSON -- Tristan Bowen's loan deal in Belgium is running out, and Chivas USA will soon need to decide what to do with him. It's too early to tell at the moment.

The 21-year-old striker from Van Nuys has been off gaining experience at second-tier KSV Roeselare since late August. He's made 23 first-team appearances, a dozen of them starts, over 31 games, scoring three goals.

KSVR's final match in the second-tier Tweedeklasse is Sunday at FC Brussels, and he won't be eligible to return to Chivas' lineup until June 27, when the summer transfer window opens.

“We have a plan to go see him, to see whether he makes sense for us come back or if we want him back,” general manager Jose Domene said following Chivas' MLS Reserve League game Monday against Seattle. “We'll see. [Roselare does not] have an option to buy him, it's just whether he comes back or we loan him again.”

Bowen, a Home Grown Player that Chivas acquired in a trade from the Galaxy in December 2010 -- about three weeks before Robin Fraser was hired -- has received playing time with Roeselare that would have been impossible with the Goats. He's a raw talent with good potential, but he made only three MLS appearances (covering 63 minutes) in five months with Chivas last year, along with one in the U.S. Open Cup and two in the MLS Reserve League.

Roeselare has used him in 22 league games and one Belgian Cup match for a total of 927 minutes -- a little more than 10 full games. He scored goals in a Jan. 14 victory over Eendracht Aalst (two minutes after coming on as a late substitute), a loss March 3 to AFC Tubize (giving KSVR a 10th-minute lead) and a draw April 14 at KSK Heist (providing a 12th-minute lead).

Fraser, asked in Bowen was in his plans, noted that “certainly for the first part of the season, we figure he's going to be gone, and we're focused on the group we have at the moment. Certainly he can be contributing member. We've seen Tristan be a good player. So depending on what happens with his situation in Belgium, then we're always excited about having good players.”

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CARSON -- Chivas USA's preparations for the 2012 season began with medical exams Sunday and moves onto good, old Field 6 at Home Depot Center on Monday morning, with head coach Robin Fraser welcoming a lot of new faces -- and not all of them, by any means, under contract.

The Goats have unloaded nearly half their 2011 roster and added a half-dozen or so new names, and if Fraser's second preseason in charge is anything like the first, plenty of trialists will get a look.

Chivas brass last year looked at more than 80 players, including academy kids, as Fraser and general manager Jose Domene presided over a rebuild that the coach said was more building “from scratch.”

Fraser's idea this year is to have a team in place as the preseason starts, but he's got roster spots to fill and areas of great need and not all negotiations are finished. Five players will be added in Tuesday's supplemental draft, and another overseas signing is possible.

Here's a quick look at the Goats as their campaign begins:

• LAST YEAR?

Chivas endured the kind of up-and-down season common to rebuilding years in 2011, playing some exceptional possession soccer but suffering from inconsistency at both ends. The Goats won back-to-back games just once, in April, and watched .500 slip away over the last two-thirds of the season. Playoff hopes died with a seven-game winless streak in August and September.

Nonetheless, Fraser and his staff built a strong foundation, several players -- especially goalkeeper Dan Kennedy, midfielder Nick LaBrocca and defender Heath Pearce -- enjoyed remarkable seasons and the addition of Juan Pablo Angel, in an August trade from the Galaxy, gave the Goats their first top-class MLS striker since Ante Razov.

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Chivas USA bolstered its midfield attack during Major League Soccer's four-hour trade window Monday, sending a pair of supplemental draft picks to Sporting Kansas City for Englishman Ryan Smith.

Read the full story here.

Michael Bradley spent the summer facing an uncertain future after his loan spell with Aston Villa led nowhere and Borussia Mönchengladbach made plans without him.

All's well and all that after the 24-year-old midfielder, one of the U.S. national team's most influential players the last four years, landed at Chievo Verona.

It was a fortuitous opening: Bradley has been a Serie A fan since childhood, and the opportunity to play in Italy will certainly help in his development.

“I think what you have in Serie A right now is a good mix of the tactical teams and then some skillful players,” Bradley told Major League Soccer's website last week. “It makes for a good game and a competitive season. It's been good to get my feet wet. Not I just need to concentrate on continuing to improve.”

Bradley, a cerebral player who thinks the game much like his father, former U.S. national team coach Bob Bradley, has gone the distance the last three games at the right-midfield slot in the Flying Donkeys' 4-3-1-2 formation.

Chievo is 2-1-2 and in eighth place with most of the season to go, and winning a European slot next season -- finishing among the top five -- would be a huge success. Finishing in the upper half of the 20-team league would be admirable.

After hardly playing during the January-to-May loan to Aston Villa, Bradley's happy he can contribute.

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UEFA's Europa League starts group play Thursday, and a couple of local players are involved.

Huntington Beach's Sacha Kljestan (Huntington Beach HS) is expected to be in Belgian power RSC Anderlecht's midfield for a Group L home game against AEK Athens.

Former UCLA star goalkeeper Brad Friedel, who is Tottenham's starter in league games, figures to back up Carlo Cudicini or Heurelho Gomes as Spurs head to Greece to take on PAOK Salonika in Group A of Europe's No. 2 club competition.

Kljestan's influence is growing at Anderlecht, where he had a roller-coaster first season but nailed down a starting job, with some very good reviews, last spring.

The Mauves met AEK in Europa group play last year, too, winning at home, 3-0, without Kljestan.

TWO DEBUTS?: Van Nuys' Tristan Bowen made his debut for his new club, but Michael Bradley will have to wait another week.

Bowen, on loan from Chivas USA to Belgian second-division side KSV Roeselare, went the the full 90 up front in a scoreless tie Sunday with Standaard Wetteren.

Bradley, whose family lives in the South Bay, was on the 18-man game roster but did not play for Italy's Chievo Verona in a 2-2 tie against Novara in its Italian Serie A opener. The Flying Donkeys play this weekend at Parma.

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Michael Bradley has been getting acquainted on and off the field with his new teammates at Chievo Verona, and he hopes to make his Serie A debut when the club opens the Italian Season on Sunday at home against promoted Novara.

Bradley, 24, moved from Germany's Borussia Mönchengladbach at the end of the summer transfer window last week. He had been searching for a new home after Aston Villa declined to extend a loan deal from the last half of last season and 'Gladbach reported he was no longer in its plans.

The son of former U.S. national team coach Bob Bradley -- considered a frontrunner for the open Santos Laguna job in Mexico -- has evolved into the most important central midfielder in American soccer and was among the most influential U.S. players at last year's World Cup. He had been linked to Italy all summer, with reported interest from American-owned AS Roma. Word of interest from Chievo Verona surfaced last month.

“We had heard for a few weeks that they were interested in finding a player in my position,” Bradley, whose family is based in Manhattan Beach, told U.S. Soccer's website. “They had watched me over a period of time and gotten to know me as a player. My situation was such that I was looking for a new challenge, and at the end of the day the people at the club showed a great amount of interest and that they were committed to bringing me to the club.

“I had discussions with the coach, the sporting director and the president, and I had a good feeling about what they are trying to build here. I’m excited to be a part of it, and I’m looking forward to the challenge of playing in Serie A for Chievo.”

The Serie A season kicks off this weekend after the first round of games was wiped out by a labor stoppage. An agreement between club owners and players was reached this week.

Chievo went 11-14-13 and finished 11th last season, 36 points behind champion AC Milan and 17 points out of a Europa Cup berth. Bradley believes the Flying Donkeys, as they're known at home, can compete for a berth next season in Europe.

“We can have a good team this year,” he said. “There’s a good mix of veteran players who will provide experience and some young, talented players. The mentality seems really good, which is important in any team. Because of the strike, there were no games [the last weekend of August], and you can feel that everyone is really excited to get going.”

ARMENIAN SURPRISE: Look who's suddenly in the Euro 2012 race.

Armenia, needing victories to stay alive in tight, tough Group B, on Tuesday stunned Slovakia, romping to a 4-0 away victory to climb to third, just two points off the lead -- and an automatic berth next year in Poland and Ukraine -- with two qualifiers to go.

Pasadena's Yura Movsisyan started the rout, scoring in the 57th minute, his fourth goal in seven Euro 2012 appearances.

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Michael Bradley's torturous summer is apparently coming to an end. The embattled midfielder is reportedly close to signing with Italy's Chievo Verona.

Bradley, 24, who evolved into a midfield force for the U.S. national team under his father's command, has been a man almost without a team since the last European season ended in May. He saw virtually no playing time during a loan spell at Aston Villa, and when the English Premier League side declined its option, he went back to German straggler Borussia Mönchengladbach, which no longer wanted him.

Add in his father, Manhattan Beach-based Bob Bradley, being dismissed as U.S. coach -- and a reportedly heated argument with former U.S. star (now Fox Soccer analyst) Eric Wynalda during the Gold Cup that depicted him poorly -- and it's not been a great few months.

But a move to Verona, on the eve of the close to Europe's summer transfer window, could be a huge step forward for the big central midfielder, who signed a Major League Soccer contract at 16 and emerged during two seasons in Holland with Heerenveen before joining Gladbach in 2008.

Chievo Verona, which is hoping to begin its Serie A campaign on Sept. 11 -- the Italian league is in labor stoppage that wiped out last weekend's scheduled openers -- has had little real success in its 82 years (three European campaigns), is lightly supported (lower-tier Hellas Verona has better support in the region) and has no big names. With the competition available in Serie A, it's the perfect place for an American looking to develop.

Reports in Europe have Bradley, who was previously linked to American-owned AS Roma, agreeing to a two-year deal with a transfer fee of about $2.9 million.

EUROPA, EUROPA: Alta Loma's Carlos Bocanegra scored his first goal for Rangers FC, but it didn't make enough difference for the Scottish champions in a UEFA Europa League playoff against Slovenia's NK Maribor. The 1-1 second-leg draw doomed the Blues to a 3-2 aggregate loss. In short succession, they were eliminated from the top-tier Champions League and the secondary Europa, ending their European campaign just as it was starting. Not just disappointing, but bad for business.

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CARSON -- Riverside's Sammy Ochoa is coming to Major League Soccer. Just not to Chivas USA.

The Goats on Friday passed on the chance to add the Mexican Primera Division veteran to their roster, the third time they've declined a player available through the league's allocation process.

Ochoa (Riverside Poly HS), 24, who has spent the past five years with Estudiantes Tecos, signed Wednesday with MLS and was allocated Friday to the Seattle Sounders.

“We passed on Ochoa,” Chivas head coach Robin Fraser said in a text message Friday afternoon. “Roster spot and salary cap reasons.”

Earlier Friday, Fraser said “the considerations [in making a decision] really are salary and salary-cap implications and roster spots and things like that. Certainly, he's a player who is interesting, interesting because of the route he's gone and where he's been and what he's done. Certainly, roster-spot and salary-cap implications are of paramount importance.”

Chivas, which sits atop the league's allocation table, previously passed when it had first refusal on U.S. national team midfielders Benny Feilhaber, who went to New England, and Freddy Adu, who joined Philadelphia.

Houston and Toronto FC had next calls on Ochoa, but both passed, and the Sounders acquired him after trading a third-round selection in next year's SuperDraft to Chicago to trade spots in the allocation order. Seattle moved up from sixth to fourth. Ochoa was on trial with the Sounders in early June.

Chivas started the year in the fourth slot on the table, based on 2010 results. The Goats moved to the top when Vancouver, Portland and D.C. United acquired players through the allocation mechanism, which is used to distribute U.S. national-teamers and players who previously turned down MLS contracts. Ochoa played for the U.S. at the 2005 FIFA U-20 World Cup and for the U-23 national team during preparations for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

NAGAMURA OUT: Midfielder Paulo Nagamura suffered a broken fifth metatarsal in Wednesday's loss at Portland and has undergone surgery to repair his right foot. Fraser noted that he'd had the same injury four times during his playing career, and the longest he was sidelined was eight weeks.

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Tristan Bowen's return to action after two months away with an ankle injury brought him a new position, a new set of challenges and, best of all, a goal. An important one, too.

The 20-year-old attacker from Van Nuys headed home a Mariano Trujillo feed Sunday as Chivas USA, down to 10 men for more than an hour, rallied for a 3-3 MLS Reserve League draw with the Portland Timbers at Home Depot Center's Track and Field Stadium.

The strike trimmed the Timbers' advantage to 3-2 in the 63rd minute, and Victor Estupiñan scored from another Trujillo pass five minutes later to deliver a share of the points.

Bowen, who has be sidelined with a sprained ankle since the first week of April, was on the game-day roster Saturday, for the 1-0 victory over the Timbers in MLS play, for the first time since March 26. He played 68 minutes Sunday atop the midfield diamond, just behind Estupiñan and fellow forward Chris Cortez.

“It felt good, getting in there and getting a run with the guys,” said Bowen, who came to Chivas in an offseason trade from the Galaxy. “I was a little bit gassed in the first half, but I caught my second wind going into the second half.”

By then Chivas was down a man -- Cortez, who scored the first goal, was ejected after punching Timbers defender Eric Brunner in the 28th minute -- and behind, 2-1. Eddie Johnson's second goal of the game, two minutes into the second half, made that 3-1.

No problem.

“We fought hard,” Bowen said. “We went down a man early in the game. It's nothing we don't practice in our regular sessions, so it was more of another exercise.”

So was Bowen's move to central midfield. He's played up top and on the flank and said he was “a bit surprised” when asked to take on the role. Chivas head coach Robin Fraser said it was a move with Bowen's future in mind.

“It's important for Tristan [to be back],” Fraser said, “and he played more in the middle of the field, and he had to make more decisions and that sort of thing, which is important in his growth. I thought he did well.”

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CARSON -- The glow that surrounded Chivas USA a month ago -- after that win at San Jose, the romp over New England and the heroic effort in the loss at Real Salt Lake -- is gone now, and Robin Fraser admits he's seeing some of the same troubles that dogged the Goats in the first weeks of the season.

A passive performance in the attacking third, at least until Vancouver's monster forward, Eric Hassli, was red-carded with 25 minutes or so to go, cost Chivas another opportunity to pick up three points Wednesday night.

“How disappointing is it?” Fraser said after the 1-1 draw at Home Depot Center. “Very. We're all about improving, and the goal is to improve every week … and this is an opportunity to come out and continue what has been, for the most part, pretty good soccer over the last number of games. …

“We missed an opportunity tonight, for sure. I mean, being a man up for [25-plus] minutes at home is certainly a very, very favorable situation, and we are definitely disappointed that we didn't do as well as we would have liked to.”

The Goats (3-4-5), with five starters suspended or away on international duty, surrendered another lead just four days after Columbus rallied three times for a 3-3 draw and struggled, despite a significant advantage in possession, to find paths through a tight and capable defense marshaled by U.S. national team veteran Jay DeMerit.

Nick LaBrocca gave Chivas a lead just 21 seconds into the second half, drilling the ball inside the left post after a 30-yard run from midfield, but the advantage was gone within two minutes, when Camilo latched onto a rebound and sent it into the upper-90.

They were far too passive in the early going -- “We'd done a tremendous job of getting away from that in the last, I don't know, eight games maybe, so tonight really felt like one of the earlier games,” Fraser said -- and not clinical enough at the end, and that's not going to be good enough if Chivas wants to contend for a playoff berth.

“I think we get a little complacent at times,” said center back Heath Pearce, who wore the captain's armband with forward Alejandro Moreno away with Venezuela's national team. “We find ourselves swimming against the current for 90 minutes because we stop moving, we stop being creative, we stop being in the right position, we stop defensively organizing. … We just kind of get complacent, and that's something we have to get away from.”

The game turned on Hassli's 66th-minute dismissal, the French striker's third red card this season, for a late tackle on Ben Zemanski. The Goats had crafted only two reasonable scoring opportunities to that point, to nine by the Whitecaps (1-5-7), but spent the final half-hour -- spurred by Paulo Nagamura's and Michael Lahoud's returns from injury -- on top of the Vancouver goal.

Nagamura and Lahoud, who came on in the 60th minute, were definite bright spots for Chivas.

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Now we learn just how deep Chivas USA's roster really is.

The Goats will be missing as many as 11 players, nine of them with reasonable starting experience, when they take on the Vancouver Whitecaps on Wednesday night at Home Depot Center, as injury, suspension and international duty carves up their roster.

Gone, for sure, are first-choice forwards Alejandro Moreno and Marcos Mondaini, starting midfielders Simon Elliott and Jorge Flores, plus defender Andy Boyens, and that's before figuring in all the long-term injuries that have played havoc with Chivas' depth all season.

"We're definitely stretched," head coach Robin Fraser said Tuesday, "and I think this is the time of year where that happens, [with the CONCACAF] Gold Cup, Copa America, what have you ... international dates. And I think all the teams are going through it, for the most part.

"Yeah, we are going to be stretched on our roster, but thats why we have a roster."

Everyone is going through it, to some degree -- Vancouver is missing three players because of international call-ups -- but the few are feeling the impact quite like the Goats (3-4-4). Moreno is off with Venezuela's national team, Boyens and Elliott are with New Zealand's, and Mondaini and Flores are serving red-card suspensions.

Then there's that six-man injured list, with everyone closer to returning to the field -- and midfielder Paulo Nagamura and defender Michael Lahoud possible for Wednesday's game or, if not, for Saturday's against the Portland Timbers. Midfielder Blair Gavin, forward Tristan Bowen and defender Seth Owusu also are nearing the end of injury layoffs, Fraser said.

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If last week's SuperClasico loss to the Galaxy let Chivas USA know how far it has to go to match Major League Socder's elite, it also showed the Goats how close they are.

Their performance in the second half of a one-goal defeat, marked by superior possession if not enough scoring chances to satisfy, offers plenty to build on Saturday at Columbus, where Chivas (3-4-3) looks to hand the Crew (3-3-4) their first home defeat of the season.

It's also the first encounter in the Goats' initial three-game weekend-to-weekend stretch of the campaign and the start of a roster rotation based on international duty rather than injury, which has limited Robin Fraser's options all season. The first-year head coach has masterfully utilized his depth, in some circumstances finding new positions for players, in the season's first two months, but call-ups are about to deprive him of three starters.

Venezuelan forward Alejandro Moreno, who has worn the captain's armband most of the season, and New Zealand midfielder Simon Elliott and defender Andy Boyens are off after Saturday's match for national team friendlies and will miss next week's games at Home Depot Center on Wednesday against Vancouver and Saturday against Portland.

The returns from injury of, especially, forward Tristan Bowen and midfielders Blair Gavin and Paulo Nagamura -- all expected back as soon as next week -- will help immensely, but Fraser isn't looking to get players rest, unlike his Galaxy counterpart, Bruce Arena, whose team's schedule is far more complicated.

"We'll play it game by game," Fraser said Friday. "It's early enough in the season that we don't have to make changes. ... Right now we can play a group that will give you the best chance to win, and that's the case every single week.

The Goats have looked good enough win in nearly every game the past month. The exception was last week's 1-0 loss to L.A., and Chivas left the field thinking they'd learned a valuable lesson.

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If this goes as Chivas USA is hoping, Andy Boyens might be seen as a hero of sorts, just for getting tossed.

It was the tall center back's red card at the end of the first half in Tuesday's U.S. Open Cup qualifying loss at Portland that seemed finally to switch the Goats to “on,” and if they can build on the effort in the 2-0 defeat to the Timbers, then watch out.

That's the scenario Chivas (0-2-0) is looking for, starting with today's game at Toronto FC (1-1-0), which continued its rebuild Friday with a blockbuster trade, sending star midfielder Dwayne De Rosario, a five-time MLS Best XI pick, to the New York Red Bulls for midfielder Tony Tchani, winger Danleigh Borman and a first-round draft pick next year.

Robin Fraser's aggressive maneuvering to restock the Goats greatly enhanced the side's quality and depth, but it wasn't until Boyens was ejected following his second yellow card just before halftime Tuesday that they played with the kind of mentality the new coach has been looking for.

The Goats did a lot of good things, especially in possession and team defending, in losses at home to Sporting Club Kansas City and Colorado to begin the Major League Soccer season, but there was a spark in their play after the New Zealander's expulsion that hadn't been present previously.

“This is the first time thus far this season that I think we've outcompeted [against an opponent] ...,” midfielder Michael Lahoud said after Tuesday's loss. “I think we take this energy and lift it up another notch, and I think we can compete against any team in the league. I seriously mean that.”

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Chivas USA unveiled a new partnership in central defense Tuesday, and it's unlikely they'll find a better pairing this season -- if ever. They'll have to: This probably was a one-off.

With three central defenders away on international duty -- Zarek Valentin, Michael Umaña and Andy Boyens -- head coach Robin Fraser and top assistant coach Greg Vanney stepped onto the field for the Goats in a 5-0 thrashing of Loyola Marymount University at Home Depot Center's Track and Field Stadium.

Vanney went the full 90, and Fraser came on in the 67th minute, joining Vanney in the middle for the final 25 minutes or so.

"We were a little thin on numbers ...," said Vanney, who was cool as can be, directing the players around him and showing off his cultured left foot. "Ben Zemanski was going to play a little bit in center back, and just he had some tightness in his hamstring, so I went in. And the other thought was that some of our young guys, we just wanted to give them a feel for how to run a backline and the communication it takes to run a backline, so we thought we'd get a little time with them and try to coach them, in the middle of the game a little bit."

Vanney, 36, a two-time MLS Best XI selection who retired following the 2008 season with the Galaxy, said he had last played 90 minutes last year, in preseason games against MLS teams visiting Arizona, where he was based. Fraser, 44, a five-time Best XI pick and two-time MLS Defender of the Year, retired in 2005.

Any chance they'll follow in the footsteps of goalkeeper Pat Onstad, who retired after last season, became an assistant coach with D.C. United, then came out of retirement when D.C. needed help in the nets?

Uh ... no.

Fraser said being on the field again was "like the other 5,000 games I've played in my life" and that he had "no desire whatsoever" to play competitively again. Said Vanney: "No returning for me."

"The important thing for us today certainly was not us playing," Fraser said. "It was getting guys some experience and being able to move guys in certain positions, and that was really the reason we played, to look at players in different positions. Given how thin we are at the moment, looking around, it was either me or Carlos [Llamosa, an assistant coach and former national team defender], and I think Carlos had full warmups on, so I figured it was me."

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