"It's the best players in the United States; there are some big names like Cobi (Jones) and Freddy (Adu), some guys who have been playing a lot of years professionally," Galaxy defender Chris Albright, 26, said.

The inaugural Aloha Soccer Cup — a preseason exhibition game — takes place tonight at Aloha Stadium at 7:30.

"Everybody wants to win," said Galaxy forward Jovan Kirovski, who signed with Manchester United in 1992, joining the reserve team after playing 13 years in European Leagues. "It's an exhibition, but we want to win; every game we play we want to win."

The game features two of the past three MLS Cup champions: Galaxy won in 2002, and D.C. won last year.

D.C. defeated Los Angeles in 1996, 3-2, for the inaugural MLS Cup title, and again in 1999, 2-0, but the Galaxy own a 12-10-2 advantage in regular-season games.

Moreno said tonight's game takes on added importance for United because it is training to play Jamaica March 9 in the CONCACAF Champions Cup, the tournament between professional clubs in the North American, Central American and Jamaican regions.

"That's our goal, to prepare for that game," he said. "The coaches, especially, are trying to find the team that will play in that game."

Moreno's teammate, forward Alecko Eskandarian, who was named the MVP of last season's MLS Cup, said because D.C. is the defending MLS champion entering the season, the pressure is on to live up to the standard.

"Being on the opposite side, where my first year we weren't so great, it's a good feeling to have, coming in with that confidence, knowing that we are the champs and each game we're going to have to prove it and people are going to be coming after us because we're going to have an 'X' on our backs," Eskandarian, 22, said.

He said they would be treating this game like any other, and that both teams would be working hard.

He warned that both teams are going to be in preseason and trying to incorporate new players into their systems, "and it's not going to be the prettiest game in the world," but both teams would be playing interesting soccer.

"Hopefully (we'll) give our fans something to admire, to look at, and enjoy, and hopefully we'll make some new fans, and I think that's our main goal to come out here: to try to show we can play and hopefully get them more involved in soccer, more interested in it," he said.

Albright said the fact that the game is being played in a place other than Washington, D.C., or Los Angeles, is not lost on the players.

"We get to play against D.C. United all the time, but never in Hawai'i," said Albright, who leaves tomorrow for the U.S. National Team training camp. "So it takes on a kind of different kind of atmosphere for us. You're going to a place where they don't know a lot about MLS and they don't know about the Galaxy and D.C. United specifically, so you're trying to impress them."