The Houston Dynamo practiced at Estadio Ricardo Saprissa in San José, Costa Rica Tuesday in advance of the second leg of their CONCACAF Champions' Cup semifinal series against Deportivo Saprissa. The game starts at 9 p.m. CT and can be seen on Fox Soccer Channel or heard in the Houston area on 790 AM (English) and 1230 AM (Spanish).
Despite the absence of four regulars and a winless history for American teams playing in Costa Rica, head coach Dominic Kinnear and his players remain optimistic ahead of Wednesday's game.
"For us, it's a matter of coming in here and having a winning attitude," Kinnear said. "We know they have a good team, but we also have a good team, and if we didn't think we could win, we would not be in this tournament."
The Dynamo were eliminated in the semifinals last year after losing the second leg at Mexican club Pachuca despite entering the game with a 2-0 lead. This year, the Dynamo come into the second leg with no advantage after a 0-0 tie in Houston April 2.
To make matters worse, Estadio Ricardo Saprissa provides a sizeable home-field advantage due to the fervent fans and funky field. The United States national team is 0-6-1 in its trips to San José, including an 0-6 mark in qualifiers. MLS teams are 0-4 in road games against Saprissa, although both the Kansas City Wizards and Los Angeles Galaxy made it to overtime before losing in 2005 and 2006.
"For us, history is history," Kinnear said. "We don't care about the past. Our goal is to make our own history here and look toward the future."
After arriving Monday night, the 22-player Dynamo squad held a 75-minute training session on Tuesday. With regulars Pat Onstad, Eddie Robinson and Stuart Holden (injury) and Bobby Boswell (suspension) not on the trip, the Dynamo did not run through their typical intra-squad game. Kinnear did close the final 15 minutes of practice, as usual, and the team practiced set pieces and penalty kicks. The Dynamo last went to a shootout in the 2007 SuperLiga semifinal.
About 15 members of the local media were on hand at practice to ask the Dynamo players about their thoughts on the second leg.
"We know the stadium will be rocking, as it will be sold out," Argentine forward Franco Caraccio said. "But I have extreme confidence in our club. I know we can do well, and we're going to be aggressive from the first minute until the 90th minute."
Forward Brian Ching and midfielder Dwayne De Rosario are the only Dynamo players on the trip who have played senior matches in the stadium before. Each has played there once in World Cup qualifying action. Midfielder Ricardo Clark said he does not expect the Dynamo to be intimidated by the atmosphere or the stadium's artificial turf.
"It's a difficult surface because the ball takes weird bounces and moves a lot faster than on natural turf," Clark said. "But we feel that we have guys with enough experience to come in here and get a good result tomorrow and move on to the finals."
