For the second straight year, the Vancouver Whitecaps will open their season with a trip to Costa Rica, as they open their CONCACAF Champions Cup campaign as Cartaginés on Wednesday.

This time, the expectations for the ‘Caps in this competition will be somewhat different, going from “happy to be here” to believing that they will be a genuine threat to win CCC after their trip to the final last season.

A repeat performance, however, will require navigating Cartaginés, which will be easier said than done. The Costa Rican side is certainly preferable to a Liga MX or MLS team in the first round, but Cartaginés is still a solid team. They qualified by virtue of winning the Central American Championship play-in game, so this is a side that knows its way around a knockout competition.

Cartaginés sit second in the table, seven matches into the Costa Rican first division clausura, and three points back of first-placed Herediano, whom they just lost to over the weekend. They have gotten there in an interesting way, however. Cartaginés has conceded the second-fewest goals of any side in the league — they’ve kept a clean sheet in four of their seven matches. They’ve...