Costa Rican Team Is a Big Challenge

By Grahame L. Jones

Feb. 23, 2006 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

The Major League Soccer season does not begin until April 1, but the defending champion Galaxy plays its first meaningful game of the year tonight at 8 when it takes on Deportivo Saprissa of Costa Rica at the Home Depot Center.

The match is the first of a home-and-home quarterfinal series in the CONCACAF Champions Cup, contested annually among the top club teams in soccer’s North and Central American and Caribbean (CONCACAF) region. The winner of the Champions Cup qualifies for the FIFA Club World Championship in Japan in December.

Saprissa -- owned by Jorge Vergara, who also owns Chivas de Guadalajara and Chivas USA -- finished third behind Sao Paulo of Brazil and Liverpool of England in the 2005 FIFA Club World Championship.

It is far from a lightweight team, and the Galaxy knows that.

In fact, Saprissa, a three-time CONCACAF Champions Cup winner (1993, 1995, 2005) provides the backbone of Costa Rica’s national team that opens the 2006 World Cup against Germany on June 9 in Munich.

At least seven players in Saprissa’s starting lineup play for Costa Rica’s national team.

“I think they’re pretty well coached and they have what we don’t have, which is the experience of having been through this,” Galaxy midfielder Landon Donovan said Wednesday.

“It’s our job to unseat them and show that we belong. In international games, there’s a different atmosphere, there’s a different aura, there’s a different way you have to play, and they understand how to do that. I’ll be curious to see how we respond and how we deal with it.”

In the best-of-two, total-goals series, the teams will play each other again on March 8 in San Jose, Costa Rica.

The Galaxy, which won the Champions Cup in 2000, has played only one game in 2006, losing 3-0 to South Korea’s national team on Feb. 8. Costa Rica defeated South Korea, 1-0, in Oakland three days later.

Galaxy Coach Steve Sampson thinks Saprissa could be overconfident tonight. Costa Rican clubs generally “don’t respect MLS teams,” he said.

“I think Saprissa, and especially the Costa Rican media, are seeing that we lost 3-0 to South Korea, but we’re going to be a lot better than they think we’re going to be.

“The timing is not ideal for MLS teams to perform their best at this time of the year, but it is what it is,” Sampson added.

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Quarterfinals

Schedule and results from the first leg of the home-and-home quarterfinals series of the CONCACAF Champions Cup:

TONIGHT’S GAME

* Who: Deportivo Saprissa of Costa Rica, defending champion and winner of the Central American qualifying tournament, versus the Galaxy, MLS Cup champion.

* Where: Home Depot Center.

* When: 8.

* TV: Fox Soccer Channel.

WEDNESDAY’S RESULTS

* New England Revolution 0, Alajuela (Costa Rica) 0, at Hamilton, Bermuda

* Club America (Mexico) 2, Portmore United (Jamaica) 1, at Houston

* Toluca (Mexico) 2, Olimpia (Honduras) 0, at Tegucigalpa, Honduras

SECOND LEG

All games March 8

* Galaxy vs. Saprissa at San Jose, Costa Rica

* New England Revolution at Alajuela

* Club America vs. Portmore United at Mexico City