’19 season starts with Champions League play
New-look Orange face Guastatoya in Guatemala City
While the Dynamo failed to make the MLS playoffs last season, winning the U.S. Open Cup and thus qualifying for CONCACAF Champions League competition turned out to be a nice consolation prize.
The Dynamo get a jump-start on the 2019 season Tuesday night when they open Champions League play against Guastatoya at Guatemala City, Guatemala.
“We are excited for sure because, for some of us, it’s the first time competing in the CONCACAF Champions League. For the club, it’s coming back after several years” coach Wilmer Cabrera said.
The CONCACAF Champions League features top clubs from across North and Central America, and the Dynamo’s 3-0 victory over the Philadelphia Union on Sept. 26, 2018, qualified the
Orange for one of the 16 available spots — four of which will be filled by other MLS clubs (Atlanta United, Toronto FC, Sporting Kansas City and New York Red Bulls).
The Dynamo will be making their sixth appearance in the competition and their first since 2013. They advanced to the quarterfinals in 2008 and 2012. Their best finish came in 2008, when they reached the semifinals.
To be better equipped for this year’s competitions — international and domestical — the club needed to improve its depth and back line.
So the Dynamo acquired midfielder Matias Vera (Higgins) and defender Aljaz “Kiki” Struna (Palermo) from the Chilean Primera Division and Italian Serie B, respectively. The team also added defender Chris Duvall, midfielder Marlon Hairston and Honduran defender Maynor Figueroa through trades within MLS. And defender Erik McCue was signed as a homegrown player in October. The Dynamo also spent their top draft pick on a defender — Californiafullback Sam Junqua.
“We feel like we’re getting there — almost there — so that’s important,” Cabrera said of his roster. “We felt that we needed to bring some specific players in at specific positions, and we have accomplished that. We continue trying to improve in a few areas, a few positions.”
After joining through a transfer from Colombian club Deportivo Cali in December 2017, midfielder Juan David Cabezas missed a significant portion of the 2018 season with leg injuries. Now healthy, Cabezas looks to strengthen the Dynamo’s midfield core with Vera.
“I feel comfortable with the team,” Cabezas said. “The guys who came for this new year have helped us in many aspects. We want to just be focused and enjoy this tournament.”
Cabezas intends to continue working with Vera to improve their timing on passes as the season progresses. He wants his teammates to be confident in the quality of their midfield.
“We need to be the base of the team,” Cabezas said.
Cabrera hopes Struna can add discipline and skill to a position that was frustratingly inconsistent last season.
“We hope with him we’re going to have a great defender, a great leader and an experienced player who has been in Europe and played in Italy,” Cabrera said of the Slovenian defender. “We’re trying to bring that with him.”
The Dynamo’s other offseason acquisitions help add a necessary layer of depth to the roster in a year when the team looks to make a run in CONCACAF Champions League, defend its U.S. Cup crown and return to the MLS playoffs.
“We’re happy the way we look, the way we’re shaping right now,” Cabrera said. “We’ve been playing preseason games, but we haven’t even played one official game, so it’s going to be different.”
The Dynamo will play the first leg in Guatemala before they play host to Guastatoya at BBVA Compass Stadium in the second leg at 7 p.m. Feb. 26. The winner of the two-leg series will be determined by total goals across both matches — with away goals serving as a tiebreaker. That team will face either Deportivo Saprissa (Costa Rica) or Tigres UANL (Mexico) in the quarterfinals.
The Dynamo open the MLS season with three consecutive home games, starting with Real Salt Lake on March 2.
“Only the games and only starting to play is going to tell us if we did good planning or it was wrong,” Cabrera said. “We are very hungry.”