CARSON, Calif. -- Scoreboard watching has become a regular occurrence with the LA Galaxy as they look to move up the table in the Western Conference, but on Thursday, their focus will be on the CONCACAF Champions League.
If the Puerto Rico Islanders defeat Salvadoran club Isidro Metapán (5pm/Univision Deportes Network), then the Galaxy will secure a spot in the quarterfinals of the CCL for the second consecutive season. An Islanders victory would prevent Metapán--who are currently at three points, four behind LA's seven-- from tying the Galaxy for the top spot in Group 5 even if Metapán were to defeat LA in their final CCL match on October 25 in El Salvador.
A victory would help the Galaxy in CCL, but also in MLS play as the trip to El Salvador is sandwiched in-between LA's final two games of the season--a road fixture against San Jose Earthquakes on Oct. 21 and the season finale at The Home Depot Center against the Seattle Sounders on Oct. 28.
Following LA's training session on Thursday, Marcelo Sarvas and Sean Franklin admitted that they're throwing their full support behind Puerto Rico...
SARVAS: “It’s good. One of our targets is to qualify for the next stage in CONCACAF, if Puerto Rico can help us today then it’ll be good and we can be focused more on our MLS games. Of course, you save travel and game time so it can help us.”
FRANKLIN: “It’d be nice to get a little help from Puerto Rico, but at the end of the day, if we got to go down there and handle business then we got to do what we got to do. If we clinch today or we don’t clinch and we have to go down and get a win in El Salvador, the team is prepared for that.”
