New­ly-crowned Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU) Club Cham­pi­onship win­ner and Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League cham­pi­on, Cen­tral FC and fel­low lo­cal club Di­recTV W Con­nec­tion have wel­comed the group­ings for the 2015/2016 Sco­tia Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons League (CCL).

This fol­lows Mon­day night's 24-team draw at the New World Sym­pho­ny Cen­ter on Mi­a­mi Beach, USA, which placed the teams in­to eight groups of three for the eighth edi­tion of the con­ti­nen­tal cham­pi­onship in its cur­rent for­mat, with match­es set to kick off in Au­gust.

Cen­tral FC, who will be mak­ing their CCL de­but this year, are drawn to face US Ma­jor League Soc­cer Cup cham­pi­ons LA Galaxy, the club of for­mer Eng­land and Liv­er­pool cap­tain Steven Ger­ard as well as Ire­land strik­er Rob­bie Keane, and Guatemalan cham­pi­ons CSD Co­mu­ni­ca­ciones in Group D.

Keane is the cur­rent cap­tain of the club hav­ing played for Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur, Leeds Unit­ed and Liv­er­pool dur­ing his Eng­lish Pre­mier­ship ca­reer.

Speak­ing about the draw, for­mer Eng­land in­ter­na­tion­al Ter­ry Fen­wick, who is in the process of ne­go­ti­at­ing a new con­tract with Cen­tral FC af­ter his deal ex­pired on Sun­day said, "I think it's won­der­ful that we can pull teams like LA Galaxy out of the hat."

Fen­wick, a for­mer Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur de­fend­er, who guid­ed Cen­tral FC past W Con­nec­tion in the CFU Club fi­nal at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va, on May 24, 2-1, added, "It's great for T&T and hope­ful­ly it can give us a great in­jec­tion of sup­port with stars like Steven Ger­ard and Rob­bie Keane com­ing I think that's mar­vel­lous for lo­cal foot­ball."

Fen­wick said that while Cen­tral FC are yet to open talks over his fu­ture, and that of the en­tire back room staff, he is very much in­ter­est­ed in stay­ing on as coach of the "Cou­va Sharks" and that fac­ing teams such as LA Galaxy in the CCL is en­tic­ing enough.

Pri­or to lift­ing the CFU Club crown, Cen­tral FC, which has al­so won the do­mes­tic First Cit­i­zens Cup, Dig­i­cel Pro Bowl and the Rawle Fletch­er, Akeem Adams and Kevon Carter tro­phies, topped Group One of the Caribbean tour­na­ment qual­i­fiers in Guyana with wins over Suri­name pow­er­house In­ter Me­on­go­tapoe (2�0) and Guyana gi­ants Al­pha Unit­ed (3�1) and then got the bet­ter of Haitians, Don Bosco FC 3�1 on penal­ty-kicks af­ter a 0�0 draw in the semi­fi­nals.

W Con­nec­tion, CFU win­ners in 2001, 2001 and 2009 and five-time run­ners-up faces comes up against Mex­i­co's 2015 Clasaura win­ner San­tos La­gu­na and Cos­ta Ri­ca's 2014 In­vier­no cham­pi­on, De­porti­vo Sapris­sa in Group A. Tech­ni­cal Di­rec­tor, Stu­art Charles-Fevri­er is wel­com­ing the chal­lenge say­ing, "This is the lev­el of op­po­si­tion I would like our play­ers play against and more of­ten."

Charles-Fevri­er added: "We are for­tu­nate to get two top teams like San­tos, a top club out of Mex­i­co in re­cent years, and Sapris­sa, a top club out of Cos­ta Ri­ca. It is our dream to some­day be­come Con­ca­caf Club cham­pi­ons, so we wel­come the chal­lenge. Where we are now as a club I pre­fer to play against dif­fi­cult op­po­nents be­cause I strong­ly be­lieve if we are to suc­ceed at this lev­el, we need to face teams like San­tos and Sapris­sa. We are still de­vel­op­ing as a club, with on­ly 15 years un­der our belt, while San­tos and Sapris­sa are es­tab­lished pro­fes­sion­al clubs.

He added: "I see the group as very pos­i­tive for us, al­though it is a dif­fi­cult one. It's a great op­por­tu­ni­ty for our play­ers to match their skills against top clubs. That's what I want for our play­ers. It chal­lenges us. Not of­ten we in the Caribbean get to play clubs of that lev­el, with a lot of suc­cess in their re­spec­tive coun­tries and are top clubs in the Con­ca­caf re­gion."

A for­mer St Lu­cian in­ter­na­tion­al and So­ca War­riors coach, Charles-Fevri­er, who, in the past, had led the "Savonet­ta Boys" against Mex­i­can clubs, said he wasn't, not even bit, fazed by Mon­day's CCL draw.

"I al­ways pre­pare for any even­tu­al­i­ty when it comes to the Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons League be­cause of the na­ture of the com­pe­ti­tion, play­ing against the top clubs from the re­gion. If we are se­ri­ous about pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball that's the lev­el we must play. I al­ways tell my play­ers we must pre­pare to take on the world, so we wel­come the draw."

W Con­nec­tion reached the Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons League by first crush­ing Guyana De­fence Force 7�1, and An­tigua and Bar­bu­da's SAP FC, 7�2, in Group Two of the CFU Club Cham­pi­onship qual­i­fiers be­fore edg­ing Ja­maican Red Stripe Pre­mier League win­ner Mon­tego Bay Sports 1�0 in its semi­fi­nal, be­fore los­ing out to Cou­va neigh­bours, Cen­tral FC in the de­cider.

The two T&T clubs will have it all to do when the CCL kicks off in Au­gust as the will be with­out com­pet­i­tive foot­ball for three months, while North and Cen­tral Amer­i­can clubs will be in mid-sea­son.

Com­ment­ing on the set back, Fen­wick said, "It runs against us, but I'm see­ing it as a pos­i­tive thing. We would be fresh, on top of fit­ness, and pre­pared for the CCL group stage. LA Galaxy and Co­mu­ni­ca­ciones don't know any­thing about Cen­tral FC, where­as we will have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to see what we are against be­cause they will be in sea­son.

Mon­tego Bay, which de­feat­ed Don Bosco 1�0 in the CFU third place play­off to gain the oth­er spot al­so faces a tough draw in Pana­ma's Arabe Unido and Ma­jor League Soc­cer's DC Unit­ed.

Reign­ing cham­pi­on Club Amer­i­ca of Mex­i­co, which cap­tured its sixth ti­tle in April by de­feat­ing Mon­tre­al Im­pact of Cana­da, head­lines Group E while fi­nal­ist in 2011, USA's Re­al Salt Lake open their third ap­pear­ance in Group G.

CS Here­di­ano, cham­pi­on of the Cos­ta Ri­can Sum­mer Tour­na­ment and a se­mi-fi­nal­ists in the 2014-15 edi­tion of the CCL, will com­pete in Group B.

The groups will be con­test­ed on a round-robin, home-and-away, four-game for­mat, run­ning Au­gust–Oc­to­ber. On­ly the eight first-place teams will progress to the quar­ter­fi­nals, which will kick-off in ear­ly 2016.

The full sched­ule for the group stage will be an­nounced in the com­ing weeks.

Groups

The groups for the 2015/16 CON­CA­CAF Cham­pi­ons League, in or­der of po­si­tion drawn:

Group A: W Con­nec­tion (Trinidad & To­ba­go), De­porti­vo Sapris­sa (Cos­ta Ri­ca), San­tos La­gu­na (Mex­i­co)

Group B: Isidro Metap�n (El Sal­vador), CS Here­di­ano (Cos­ta Ri­ca), Ti­gres (Mex­i­co)

Group C: Verdes FC (Be­lize), San Fran­cis­co FC (Pana­ma), Quere­taro FC (Mex­i­co)

Group D: Cen­tral FC (Trinidad & To­ba­go), CSD Co­mu­ni­ca­ciones (Guatemala), LA Galaxy (USA)

Group E: CD Wal­ter Fer­ret­ti (Nicaragua), CD Mo­tagua (Hon­duras), Club Amer­i­ca (Mex­i­co)

Group F: Van­cou­ver White­caps FC (Cana­da), CD Olimpia (Hon­duras), Seat­tle Sounders FC (USA)

Group G: San­ta Tecla FC (El Sal­vador), CSD Mu­nic­i­pal (Guatemala), Re­al Salt Lake (USA)

Group H: Mon­tego Bay Unit­ed (Ja­maica), Arabe Unido (Pana­ma), DC Unit­ed (USA)