Chivas USA became the 11th member of Major League Soccer nearly a decade ago, beginning play with the cachet that its parent club was Chivas Guadalajara, an immensely popular Mexican team.

But over the years, Chivas USA has struggled on the field and in gaining support in the Los Angeles market, and on Thursday the team dismissed its head coach, Jose Luis Sanchez Sola, only six months after he took the job, citing the team’s poor performance.

The dismissal of the Mexican-born Sanchez Sola is hardly out of the ordinary in the ebb and flow of professional sports, but a lawsuit filed against the club this week in California Superior Court raises issues not usually associated with wins and losses. (The team is in last place in the Western Conference with a 3-7-2 record.)

In the suit, two men who were coaches for the club charge they were fired from their jobs earlier this year because they are not Latino.