Preki was hoping a change of scenery would help turn his team's fortunes around. Instead, it was more of the same for Chivas USA, which suffered a 2-0 loss to Tauro FC in the first leg of their CONCACAF Champions League preliminary round series at Estadio Rod Carew just outside of Panama City.
Edwin Aguilar was the hero for the seven-time Panamanian champions, scoring a pair of goals, including the opener just seven minutes into the match.
"It was a tough one. The conditions were not the best but today we had to deal with it. We are professionals," defender Shavar Thomas said. "We went down early that kind of costs us a little bit. We created a couple of chances but we didn't get anything but we have next week to redeem ourselves."
Chivas USA returns to the familiar confines of The Home Depot Center for the second leg, but need to score twice just to equalize while hoping not to concede the all-important road goal. Chivas has twice scored three goals in a game this year, the last coming in a 3-1 victory against D.C. United on May 16.
"We put ourselves in a hole early and we spent the rest of the game trying to come back into it," Alecko Eskandarian said. "In an international tournament that is not going to cut it. You have to have 90 minutes of focus. It doesn't matter who you are playing against and where you are playing. You have to focus."
The Red-and-White have now gone three games without scoring a goal and are winless in seven consecutive contests, dating back to a 1-0 victory against Santos Laguna in the SuperLiga on July 17.
Ante Razov scored the winning goal in that game, but the veteran striker wasn't available Tuesday, nursing a sprained left knee. He joined Alex Zotinca, Maykel Galindo, Raphael Wicky, Carey Talley and Jesse Marsch as the Chivas walking wounded.
"It was a tough place to come and play, we started slow, myself included, we just never found the rhythm of the play," Kraig Chiles said. "Tough field, but they're all excuses. In the second half I think we found a way to wear them down, but we just couldn't break through and find a goal. I think we are going to have to handle business back in our place."
One player who Preki did get back from injury is Eskandarian, who made his return from sports hernia surgery to play the final 31 minutes of a scoreless draw against San Jose Saturday night in Carson.
Eskandarian was brought on at halftime against Tauro FC as one of Preki's two changes at the break. Eskandarian had some quality chances, but he missed the target with an attempt from the edge of the 18-yard box just four minutes after stepping onto the field and then his low free kick deflected off the Tauro wall and out for a corner kick in the 75th minute.
"I'm really disappointed with the way we played," Eskandarian said. "Even though we created chances, we gave away a lot of opportunities as well and you know, we have a lot of work to do. A bunch of us need to look in the mirror and think what more we can do to help the team and what we can work on because it just wasn't good enough."
As disappointed as it was to fall behind immediately, had Atiba Harris finished a pair of chances in the first half -- a diving header wide of the target in the 11th minute and a one-on-one with Tauro FC goalkeeper Willington Dominguez in the 34th minute -- Chivas would have gone into the locker room at halftime level with a critical away goal.
"We created one or two opportunities with Atiba Harris. If he scores, it was going to be another game, but we don't score and we go to halftime 1-0 down," Preki said. "In the second half, I tried to push the tempo a little bit, we made one mistake and we got punished. We are still not out of it, hopefully we can get together and maybe get two or three (players) back."
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