Last year in the pouring rain at Real Salt Lake, FC Dallas celebrated with gusto after a 1-0 win at Rio Tinto Stadium in October because it meant they had officially qualified for 2016-2017 CONCACAF Champions League play. Over nine months later, they're ready to get started on the journey.
The CCL is the most prestigious international competition between clubs in this region. It starts with 24 teams in the group stage, where the top team in each group advances, before starting knockout rounds in early 2017. FC Dallas qualified for the competition after finishing the 2015 season at the top of the Western Conference. Four other MLS teams also qualified and could become potential opponents if they advance past the group stage – the Portland Timbers, the Vancouver Whitecaps, Sporting KC and the New York Red Bulls as well as giants from Liga MX, Club America, Pachuca, Tigres and Monterrey.
FC Dallas will play Real Esteli first, starting on Thursday night at Toyota Stadium a team that unlike FC Dallas has plenty of experience in the competition and will be competing in their sixth edition of Champions League – compared to Dallas, who will be competing in the competition for the first time since 2011 and just their second time overall since the current format began in 2008. They failed to make it past the group stage five years ago, but much of the current roster wasn’t even on the team back then. This time around, they’ll bring new key players to the field – like Mauro Diaz, Maxi Urruti, Kellyn Acosta, and Walker Zimmerman, to name just a few – as they aim for a CCL trophy.
But FC Dallas’ relative lack of experience in the competition doesn’t faze midfielder Ryan Hollingshead.
"We're a confident group,” he said. “We feel like we can hang with a lot of different teams from different leagues. [Real Esteli] might just be a little bit more comfortable from being in it more often, but it's hard to say because in the same way, it just doesn't play out. Especially in MLS playoffs, teams that have been there more often don’t necessarily mean they're going to do better.”
It's especially tough heading into such a big tournament without knowing much about your opponent – the two clubs have obviously never played against each other before, but Hollingshead said the team will do their research before heading out onto the field, just like they normally do.
"We'll try to pull apart what they are, but we know a lot of the game, for us, is just sticking to our game plan," Hollingshead said. "If we do the things that we do well, we don't really have to adjust to other teams too much – we try to make the other teams adjust to us. That'll be our game plan going forward."
Defender Aubrey David, who logged a bit of CONCACAF experience with his former Costa Rican club, added that playing at home – where FC Dallas is currently unbeaten for 17 consecutive MLS matches – will certainly be an advantage for the first game.
"The guys have defended very well here and it's going to be difficult for any team to come here and get a victory," David said. "We gel well together and we are getting the results that we want, so we just need to continue doing what we've been doing."
David also mentioned the differences between the two countries, stating that the grounds and environments in Central America are quite a bit different from home and could pose as a potential obstacle for FC Dallas. Another obstacle could be the team's schedule – but even despite FC Dallas' tough mid-season schedule with so many matches in such a short amount of time, the team has proved their strength and resiliency time and time again.
"It's a tough stretch of the season, because we have so many weekly games with Open Cup, and then you've got MLS regular season on the weekends, and now CONCACAF being thrown into the mix. It's a lot," Hollingshead admitted. "But our team is deep, and we have a lot of guys that we can throw at a lot of these different games, so we're excited, we want to make a run and see how far we can get."
