Twice Major League Soccer teams have played in the final for the CONCACAF Champions League. In 2011, Real Salt Lake fell to Monterrey and this year the Montreal Impact lost to Club America. And while both the LA Galaxy and D.C. United won the tournament under a different format, since CCL adopted its current format in 2008, no MLS team has won the title.
Now with the 2015-16 field set and the groups drawn on Monday, Real Salt Lake has its eyes set on that thus far elusive prize.
“I want to be the first MLS team to win it,” RSL Head Coach Jeff Cassar said this week on The Bill & OC Show on ESPN 700.
In Municipal and Santa Tecla, RSL drew teams with two very different histories.
Municipal was founded in 1936 and has featured some of the top players in the country’s history, including current forward (and former LA Galaxy star) Carlos Ruiz. Now 35 years old, Ruiz led “Los Rojos” to runner-up finishes behind Comunicaciones in both the 2014 Apertura nad 2015 Clausura seasons to take up the second of two Champions League berths from Guatemala. Municipal has been among the top teams in Guatemala in recent years and has seven players that have been called in to the national team in the last 12 months.
“Municipal has been a strong team for a long time,” Cassar said. “Carlos Ruiz is a forward down there who had a great career in MLS for a long time. So there’s a lot of history with that club.”
Santa Tecla, meanwhile, won the 2015 Clausura season to earn one of two berths from El Salvador. Founded in 2007, the club was promoted to the Primera Division in 2012 and has continued its rise until finally reaching the Champions League for the first time this year.
“Santa Tecla is kind of a new club but they’re doing a lot of good things there,” Cassar said.
Regardless of histories and traditions, Champions League is a tremendous opportunity for clubs to measure themselves against the top teams in the region and see new parts of the world.
“I think it’s an exciting thing for our club, for our fans, to see two different countries that we haven’t seen before in Champions League. So they’re going to see two different styles of soccer,” Cassar said. “It’s a lot of traveling. It’s typically not the best fields down there to play on. But I’m excited about the draw and I know the players are excited to get that competition started and rolling.”
To hear Cassar’s full interview, click here.
