CARSON, Calif. – Bruce Arena acknowledges that he doesn't “know anything about those teams” the LA Galaxy were assigned to play this summer and fall in the CONCACAF Champions League, but he's happy, for the most part, with how things played out at the group-stage draw Monday night in Miami Beach.
LA will face Guatemalan powerhouse Comunicaciones and 3-year-old Trinidadian club Central FC in Group D play, and the biggest issues are travel, especially to Trinidad and Tobago, as well as a crowded schedule during the likely weeks the games will be played.
The Galaxy avoided MLS rival Vancouver Whitecaps, who were placed in Group F with Cascadia Cup archrival Seattle Sounders, and clubs from Costa Rica and Honduras, Central America's most powerful soccer nations.
“None of these games are easy, regardless of who you play,” Arena said Wednesday, when the Galaxy began work toward Saturday's Western Conference showdown at StubHub Center with the Whitecaps. “Obviously, MLS teams [such as Vancouver, the only possible league rival that could have been a group-stage foe] would not be any easier, for sure, but the travel would be a little bit more reasonable.
“There's a lot of pluses and minuses with everything. We'll just have to wait and see, wait until we get the schedule, figure out how we're going to approach those games, and move on. But there's no reason to believe we're not capable of winning the group and advancing to the quarterfinals.”
Comunicaciones have won a record 30 Guatemalan titles, including the past six, and are in the CCL for the fifth time since the current format was introduced in 2008. Los Cremas, who won the CONCACAF Champions' Cup in 1978 and were twice runner-up in the 1960s, have won at least two group games in each of their four appearances and have beaten Mexico's Monterrey and Pumas UNAM and last year drew, 1-1, at home with Club America, who went on to win the competition.
Central FC, formed in 2012, are making their first CCL appearance after winning the Caribbean Football Union championship last month, beating fellow Trinidadian club W Connection in the title game.
LA, who won the CONCACAF Champions' Cup in 2000, are making their fifth CCL appearance. They've reached the quarterfinals twice, losing to Toronto FC in 2012 and Club Tijuana last year, and were a semifinalist in 2013, falling to Monterrey.
“It's a priority of ours, for sure, as we want to win everything that we step on the field and compete in,” defender A.J. DeLaGarza said. “That's easier said than done, but we've got to have a good mentality. We're playing in two very tough atmospheres, in Trinidad and Guatemala, and [need to] make sure we handle the two games [at home].”
Travel and mixing CCL games in with league competitions is a challenge for any MLS team.
Trinidad is one of the farthest CONCACAF nations from Southern California – only French Guyana, Suriname and Guyana are farther southeast.
“I don't think you ever want to travel nine or 10 hours in a plane to play somewhere,” Arena said, “but if you have to, you have to.”
The Galaxy have used first-choice lineups and teams of reserves in past opening-stage games, and Arena says their approach this year will depend on what else is going on.
“There's a million variables that come into play,” he said. “Are you home, are you away, who you're playing, who's healthy, who's not, what's your schedule that week? There's a lot of factors.”
