FC Dallas Weekly 2nd edition

Record: 3-0-1 (10 points) 1^st in Western Conference

Last Week: W 2-1 vs. Portland

            FC Dallas matched its best start in franchise history with a 2-1 win at home over the Portland Timbers. The team also started 3-0-1 in 2006. The main story of this game was the dismissal of FC Dallas’ Je-Vaughn Watson and Seattle’s Michael Harrington in the 39^th minute. Both players were shown red cards after pushing and shoving one another. The decision by the referee was somewhat controversial given the pushing and shoving wasn’t very excessive. Usually you would see both players get yellows for a little scrum like that. After this point, FC Dallas basically took full control of the game with Blas Perez opening the scoring in stoppage time of the first half. Portland equalized in the 66^th minute after Matt Hedges deflected a pass into his own net. However, Mauro Diaz had the last word as he hit a very good shot from the top right side of the box into the lower left corner in the 84^th minute while being closely defended. Diaz is in very good form early in the season; he has two goals so far and was very good distributing the ball over the last two weeks. The win keeps FC Dallas on top of the Western Conference standings.

Mauro Diaz celebrates scoring the game winning goal for FC Dallas, the midfielder's play is a big reason why FC Dallas are undefeated.

            It’s a dream start for first year coach Oscar Pareja as no one saw this coming from a team that is missing key players in defense. The defense will be a talking point all season long, but FC Dallas were really unlucky not to have kept a clean sheet in this game. Matt Hedges was actually in perfect position when a Portland pass came his way in the 66^th minute. The defender had the ball bounce off the wrong part of his foot leaving goalkeeper Chris Seitz with no chance. One way of dealing with defensive problems is to keep the ball away from your opponent. FC Dallas are doing just that, after recording 60% possession last week they kept the ball 57% of the time in this week’s game. An impressive feat considering Portland led the league in possession coming into this game. FC Dallas were in control for most of the second half and fully deserved the three points.

            It’s important the note the significance of a red card. It may not seem like a big difference when you have eleven men on the field, but playing man down is extremely difficult in soccer. Because these are professional players, they know exactly how to exploit a team that is missing one player, and usually the team with 10 has to sit back and hope to score on a counter attack. This week’s game was a unique situation where each team played with 10 men for more than half of the game. What this does is open up a lot of space and allows for better passing opportunities for both teams. It’s no surprise that all three goals came after the red cards were handed out

            Next up for FC Dallas is the annual Texas derby game against the Houston Dynamo. The winner not only gets bragging rights but also El Capitan, a cannon trophy. Houston leads the all-time series 5-3-1 but FC Dallas won last year’s match-up 3-2. The Dynamo have won both home games this year while FC Dallas’ only road game ended in a draw. However, this is a derby game which means you can basically throw out any statistics or trends because the rivalry is greater than the numbers. It should be a good test for FC Dallas on the road and a draw would be a respectable result.