Striker Peter Byers grinned when asked if there was any reason to be nervous playing against an old foe. One he knows better than any of his Impact teammates, with the exception of fellow Antigua & Barbuda national team member forward Gason Gregory.
"Them guys" are Joe Public from Trinidad & Tobago, which the Impact faces in tonight's opening game of group play in the CONCACAF Champions League at Saputo Stadium (8 p.m., Radio-Canada.ca/sports, bold TV, CBCSports.ca, The Team 990, CKAC Sports. Tape-delayed Radio-Canada, 11:45 p.m., and CBC, midnight).
It's the first game of a home-and-home, round-robin series in Group C of the 16-team tournament, in which the Impact also will face Atlante FC of Mexico and CD Olimpia of Honduras.
Joe Public, named to reflect "a team that belongs to everybody" plays in Trinidad & Tobago's premier division and qualified for the group stage after eliminating Major League Soccer's New England Revolution, 6-1 on aggregate goals in the two-game qualifying preliminary round last month.
The team is owned by Jack Warner, president of CONCACAF and FIFA vice-president. While the Impact doesn't know much about the club, Byers - who along with Gregory, previously played against Joe Public while with Clico San Juan Jabloteh, the top club in the T&T league - sees no reason the team shouldn't have the upper hand tonight.
"They will come hard for a win, but it's our home, so we'll make sure and beat them," said Byers, who has scored three goals in six games in the United Soccer Leagues First Division since joining the Impact a month ago.
"They will be physical. Try to attack a lot," Byers said. "But we'll be ready for them. I'm sure we'll come out on top."
Said Gregory: "I'm expecting a fast and physical game. They have a quick counterattack, so we have to avoid it. They are good offensively, but defensively it's different. We should do well if we do the right things. It should be easier here with our fans behind us."
Joe Public, champion of the 10-team T&T league in 2006, is nicknamed the Eastern Lions and sits seventh in its league back home behind first-place Jabloteh.
The team, under Keith Griffith, a native of Barbados who took over as head coach six weeks ago, is composed largely of Trinidadians, but also has four
Jamaicans, three Haitians, and one player each from Colombia, England and Guyana. The latter is striker Gregory Richardson, who scored three times in the team's 4-0 win over the Revolution in the return leg of their preliminary series at Foxborough, Mass., on Aug. 26.
Griffith said Joe Public is the most popular club in Trinidad & Tobago, because of its orientation and having players from different countries and "because of the fact that it's Jack Warner's team, it gets lots of publicity."