FC Dallas 2-LAFC 1
Toyota Stadium was like cauldron at kick-off due to the 100 degree sun beating down in Texas Saturday, but a decent crowd of over 14,000 braved the heat to watch 2nd place Dallas take on their rivals at the top of the West third place LAFC.
Oscar Pareja would have been very happy with the way the first half played out. After 2 road wins in 5 days there was no doubt that Pareja had the intention of making 3 wins in a row, with a bold 4-3-3 formation, finding a place in the starting line-up for Urruti, Lamah, Diaz and Mossquera. This meant that Michael Barrios, the only player to have started every game for FCD so far, made his first appearance on the bench.
The formation worked very well, with some great fluid movement and interplay between the forward players. Often Carlos Gruezo dropped back to allow Cannon and Hollingshead to push forward which would make it a 3-5-2 when Dallas were on the offence.
The opening twenty were a tight back-and-forth. There was some positional switching with Lamah moving more central and Diaz moving further left, which helped FCD kick up a gear. A nice move involving a through ball from Diaz to Santi who flicked it on to Lamah almost opened, but the Belgian got the ball stuck under his feet.
Dallas were struggling to unpick the LA defense and there was some fortune with the goal. Taking a wide free-kick, Diaz pulled the ball to Cannon who scuffed a cross. The ball ricocheted around the box before bouncing up to Ziegler 6 yards out, and the Swiss nodded home his first goal in the MLS.
After that the LA defense started to look stretched. One break found Lamah out on the left who fired the ball across to Mosquera who had acres of space. He squared to Maxi who was one-on-one with Tyler Miller, but the Argentine striker’s first touch was heavy and gave the Miller time to spread himself to push the ball behind for a corner. Urruti had another good looks at goal before half-time but again his effort was saved well by Miller. And Carlos Gruezo, who surprised everyone by going up the field to score the third against LA Galaxy mid-week, almost made it 2 in 2 matches, poking a cross from Diaz against the post.
The second half started in the same vain as the first, with FC Dallas streaming forward, Urruti curling a beautiful shot past Miller on the edge of the box, only to see the ball come back off the post. But they wouldn’t have to wait long for them to double the lead on 55 minutes. Hollingsworth picked the ball up in his own half and drove down the left, before squaring to Lamah, who was perhaps a bit lucky to take the ball past the defender before slotting the ball home for his 6th of the season. He is now joint top scorer with Maxi Urruti.
This then forced Bob Bradley to make two substitutions, reflecting that things were not going well for the team from the West Coast. Striker Adama Diomande came on for Nguyen and made instant impact. The Dallas defense went to sleep as Diomande linked with Feilhaber to find himself one-on-one with Jesse and putting the ball home. The heat was perhaps getting to Reto and Hedges at the back because they let Diomande through again a few minutes later, but this time Gonazalez made the save.
There was a worry at the 72nd minute mark when Kelly Acosta went down holding his groin and was substituted soon after. The midfield had a strong game roaming the field, plugging in the gaps that the attacking formation left open. After the match Carlos Pareja said Acosta was smiling so has are it wasn’t a bad injury.
LAFC didn’t get to many chances and FC Dallas looked to kill the game off on the break. Reggie Cannon made a great run on 83 minutes, storming through the defense before sending Urruti through one-on-one, who took it past the goalkeeper but the angle was too tight to find the net. Cannon was great all night, getting very little defense cover, while also running the channels to give width. In the post-match conference Pareja suggested surely it’s only matter of time before the USMNT call him up.
Dallas held onto to the win after another lengthy stoppage time period. After the match Pareja alluded to the criticisms of his team’s supposed time-wasting, but he said that the integrity of his team was unquestionable. Both teams were inevitably exhausted, but Dallas prevented any nervy moments by holding on to possession to close the game out, much to the delight of the crowd, particularly those in the beer garden who were raucous in the last 10 minutes creating a great atmosphere to help their team clinch another 3 points. The win also puts Dallas at the top of the West.
Editor’s Note: All photos are courtesy of photographer Ziro Castellanos. You can view all of his FC Dallas photos from the season on SmugMug.
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