How could he not?

The veteran defender crashed into goalkeeper Nick Rimando late in a scoreless game, then watched helplessly as former RSL striker Alecko Eskandarian easily drilled home a Chivas game-winner that stuck RSL with its first - and still only - home loss of the season.

Now, Borchers gets a chance to make up for it, when the former expansion rivals meet in the Major League Soccer playoffs at Rio Tinto Stadium on Saturday.

"You never forget those mistakes, and you always want to make good on those mistakes," Borchers said, "and I'm really excited to be able to come back and do right by the team and play better against Chivas. I was really hoping this series would come out, because I'm really hungry to go against these guys."

Ticket sales

Building a crowd for a playoff game is seldom easy, since playoff tickets are not part of season-ticket packages. So it is that RSL has sold only about half of the 20,000 seats at Rio Tinto for the first playoff game in its history, though team officials are still hoping for a sellout.

Remember him?

Striker Maykel Galindo won't play for Chivas against RSL, after having a surgery for a sports hernia Wednesday - his third surgery on the injury this year. The team said he could be out up to three months.

Contract target

Having recently signed midfielder Javier Morales to a contract extension, RSL officials are now trying to do the same with defender Jamison Olave.

The bullish central defender has been a force for RSL this season, since arriving on loan from Deportivo Cali in his native Colombia, and the club envisions him as a pivotal part of its plans.

The team has offered Olave a contract extension that would replace his loan deal with a full transfer to RSL, though Olave said he didn't know much about the details. Still, he's open to staying. "I'm happy," he said through a translator. "I like the team, I like the city - especially now, with the new stadium."

mcl@sltrib.com