“I’d say, ‘This is who we are,’ ” Roth said. “There’s no reason it shouldn’t work. If you’re an authentic Mexican team, I think you would get a following. It’s easy to market something that’s real.”

Such dreams are distant ones for Chivas U.S.A. In February, after buying the club from Vergara, M.L.S. appointed a former longtime league executive, Nelson Rodriguez, as the team’s caretaker president. But from the outside, little has changed.

Playing for its fifth coach in the past five years, Chivas U.S.A. sits at the bottom of the Western Conference, where it has finished three of the last four seasons. Despite the presence of an All-Star forward, Erick Torres, the team entered play Wednesday without a goal since July 20 — a run of six games. It managed to end that run Wednesday night, but still lost to Seattle, 4-2.

Off the field, the outlook is equally grim. For the second year in a row, Chivas U.S.A. does not have a jersey sponsor. Local newspapers rarely cover the team’s matches, and in a lucrative sports television market — the Lakers, the Dodgers, the Angels and the Galaxy all signed long-term local television contracts recently — Chivas U.S.A. began its second consecutive season without its games being televised locally. (The club reached deals for some English-language and Spanish-language broadcasts in May; last year, that process took until September.)

“When you’re in a losing environment — and I think that’s the only way to describe where we’ve been — it’s easy for standards to slip,” Rodriguez said.

“It’s almost human nature to expect the worst or to start to value yourself a little less, personally and professionally, because you get beaten down by losing,” Rodriguez added. “You get beaten down by not closing a ticket sale or not closing a sponsorship deal. You get beaten down by perception — we’re not on TV until September. None of that is major league. All of that, quite frankly, is minor league.”

Rodriguez instead points to incremental progress. The team has made several acquisitions, although none of them are marquee players. New televisions have been installed in the players’ lounge, and chefs now prepare meals before and after practice. Several players said those little things matter, and that whatever happens with the sale is beyond their control.