PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad -- LA Galaxy head coach Bruce Arena spoke to reporters following the club's 1-1 draw with Central FC. With the draw, the Galaxy clinched their spot in the knockout rounds of the 2015-16 CONCACAF Champions League.
(On the result...)
ARENA: "We anticipated a difficult game, and certainly got one. We didn't help ourselves by conceding a goal in the first few minutes of the game. I was proud of the team because they created some good chances in the second half. I think that the player of the game was certainly [Central FC goalkeeper Jan Williams] because he made a bunch of good saves, and didn't make it easy for us. We got the point that we needed anyway to win the group. We would have liked to have all three, but any time that you go on the road, these matches are difficult. It's good experience for some of our younger players as well. It's nice to know that we're in the competition next year. We look forward to the next match, and hopefully we can improve our seeding."
(On the health of Baggio Husidic who left with a left knee injury...)
ARENA: "I don't know where he's at with the injury. I don't have an update."
(On the impact of Jose Villarreal and Raul Mendiola...)
ARENA: " They certainly helped. Mendiola in particular was influential. He had that one little chance early, but I think that about a month and a half ago, he was knocked out cold by the goalkeeper so I think that was in his head a little bit on that play. Obviously, he did well to set up that goal as well. It was good to get Jose back on the field, he's been out most of the year.."
(On why he only took 16 players to Trinidad...)
ARENA; "Well, we left our first 11 at home, so these were the only players available to us. In all honesty, I don't think that you ever need seven substitutes. We had everything covered with injuries by taking five subs. We were aware that we could run into a little bit of trouble, and using a substitute in the first minutes didn't help us. We were fortunate that we had a couple of players on the bench who could get a goal, and they did that."
(On the quality of the match...)
ARENA: "It was an exciting game. Central was dangerous on the break, and I thought that they did a good job defending the lead. We were certainly fortunate to get a goal. I think that it was a good game."
(On what he told the team at halftime...)
ARENA: "I thought that there were goals in the game for us, we just had to play a little bit better. Pass a little better and have a little bit more energy in the attacking third of the field which we didn't have in the first half. I thought in the last minutes of the first half that Central was starting to get fatigued. I thought if we could do a little bit better of a job and press them that we were going to get some chances.'
(On the Galaxy leaving their first team at home and if it was a curious decision...)
ARENA: "I don't think that we're struggling. We advanced in Champions League and we're in the top three in our league, so we're doing OK. That's life. You don't win every game. We have a game this weekend and this is a lot of travel. That's the decision that we made because this is nine or 10 hours of air travel. The decision was made to rest our first team and prepare for this weekend's match."
(On the Galaxy's aspirations in the CCL....)
ARENA: "We're in the last eight which is good. In the next match, hopefully we can position ourselves to get a decent seed. But at the end of the day, I think that when you get in the last eight that the seeds don't matter. The difficult part that we have is that we don't know what our team is going to look like next year. Things are difficult. We don't know what type of team that we're going to be able to field in February and March because of the variety of rules that we have in our league.
(On how important the CCL is to the Galaxy...)
ARENA: It's important. Hopefully we can assemble a good enough team next year and try to advance to the Club World Cup."
