CARSON, Calif. -- Three days before kickoff of Saturday's United States-Sweden international friendly at The Home Depot Center, Sacha Kljestan was in Scotland wrapping up a week-long trial with famed club Celtic FC.
After a flight across the pond and all the way back to his native southern California, Kljestan could easily have succumbed to jet lag and the distractions that such travels can carry.
Instead, the trip seemed to spark new life into the Chivas USA standout as Kljestan scored three goals in the USA's 3-2 victory over Sweden.
"It's important to start the year off with a win," U.S. coach Bob Bradley said. "When you're in a long camp, three weeks, it's a lot of work and the challenge of getting guys fit, it's nice at the end to have the reward of winning."
Kljestan returned to the United States on Thursday and arrived in Los Angeles at 3 p.m. After getting nine hours of sleep on Thursday night, Kljestan was able to recover from jet lag in part because the team held an evening training session on Friday. Another nine hours of sleep on Friday helped and by game time Saturday, Kljestan had zoned in on the match and his task at hand.
"I've had games in the past where you leave Chivas and you go and play for the national team and then you come back and in two days' time you're playing with Chivas. That's something I've tried my best to deal with in previous years," Kljestan said. "I think I did a good job of doing that tonight of not letting anything distract me and focusing 100 percent on this game."
Bradley, who selected Kljestan in the MLS SuperDraft while coaching with Chivas USA, said the goals were well deserved.
"It's nice to see Sacha get some goals," Bradley said. "He worked hard in this camp and took a break in the middle but he came back strong and that was important for us tonight."
Kljestan opened his account in the 16th minute when he buried a 34-yard free kick in the upper left corner of the net. Afterward, he credited Chivas USA coach Preki for having helped hone his set piece ability.
Club teammate Jonathan Bornstein said he'd seen Kljestan knock in goals like at training before.
"It's great to see when all that hard work pays off and he definitely deserves those goals tonight," Bornstein said. "You don't get a hat trick every day."
Kljestan scored his second goal in the 40th minute on a penalty kick and finished off his hat trick in the 74th minute, just one minute after Sweden's Daniel Nannskog had cut the United States' lead to one goal.
The hat trick, the 11th all-time in U.S. national team history, was just as much Ching's doing as it was Kljestan's. Ching collected a long ball in the box and slipped a ball to Kljestan, who easily beat Swedish goalkeeper Johan Dahlin.
"Brian does a lot of dirty work on the field and does a great job in terms of holding the ball and setting Sacha up with the third goal which came at an important time," Bradley said.
Danny Califf sent the ball in from the back and Ching took care of the rest.
"It was a great ball from (Califf) and I just took it out from the air and saw Sacha making a great run," Ching said.
Still, despite the victory and Kljestan's standout play, Bradley said there were areas he felt could have been better.
"From a coaching standpoint, there are always going to be things from this game at this time of year that you feel good about, there's always going to be things that need improvement," the U.S. manager said. "So I think that part is very clear. We got a number of guys who got their first game with the national team and that is something we want to continue to do in terms of building our pool so in that regard it's a good feeling."
For Kljestan, the most rewarding part of having scored his three goals was that he scored them before his loved ones.
"I had a good experience over there and I was very happy to be able to come back for this game," he said. "We've been in this camp for three weeks now and we've put in a lot of work -- I did for the first two weeks - so I was very happy to come back and especially to play at Home Depot (Center) in front of my friends and family."
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