Toronto FC’s players arrived back at BMO Field on Wednesday morning following the 2-2 draw in Honduras against Motagua on Tuesday night which secured a 3-2 aggregate win in the Preliminary Round of the Champions League.
The Reds players will be off on Thursday and will return to training at Cherry Beach on Friday morning ahead of their return to league action against Chivas USA (Saturday at 4:00 p.m. live on CBC).
After making it through to the CONCACAF Champions League Group Stage, Coach Preki knows there are even bigger tests ahead, as the club tries to juggle a playoff challenge along with the six additional games.
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<p style="font-size: 10px; margin: 0pt auto;">VIDEO: Toronto head coach Preki discusses Champions League and the road ahead.</p> |
“Now it is going to be another test for us in the Group Stage and we will see what we are made of,” he said. “We will see how many guys we can count on and will have to share some minutes around. That will be the way life is for us over the next three months. We will all see each other quite a bit and hopefully we will get some success.”
“It is all great that we are in this competition but you always want to get something out of it. Of course it is a big achievement for a club that is fairly young and inexperienced in all of this. We will have to grow fast.”
Goals from Dwayne De Rosario and Chad Barrett canceled out two Amado Guevara strikes in Tegucigalpa and the Reds were able to keep the one goal advantage they held from the home leg at BMO Field. “I was very proud of the way we played against Motagua on Tuesday and we are all very excited to move into the Group Stage of the CONCACAF Champions League.”
“It was a difficult game in Honduras and everything around the trip was difficult. The whole trip started on the wrong foot when we went to Kansas City last weekend and lost our luggage. We lost that game in a very unlucky fashion because I felt we were the better team and one fluke moment cost us the game.”
“After K.C. we jumped on the plane to San Pedro Sula and then had to drive five hours through the mountains on windy roads. We got there late in the day and as soon as we started to practice it started raining heavily, so the buildup was certainly not ideal! But the group was good. We made sure everyone knew that there were no excuses. We didn’t want it to become an easy way out. There were 25 of us on the trip and we were determined to stick together and leave having achieved success, and that’s what we did.”
“The players were tremendous in their response and fighting spirit in the group and we found a way to get a result. Hopefully the whole experience will make us better as a team. We have some talented guys but winning is also about sacrificing talents for the good of the team.”
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