FC Dallas vs Minnesota United compete in the First Round of the MLS Cup Playoffs
FRISCO, TEXAS — It’s official! Round one of the MLS Cup Playoffs are here. The contenders are a heavy line up of the teams who fought their way and the journey to the Finals are not over. Unfortunately for 14 clubs the season comes to an end, but not for FC Dallas and Minnesota United who faced off on Dallas Home Field, the Toyota Stadium.
FCD taking the 3rd spot compared to Minnesota’s 6th place standing, overall is telling of how these teams are truly able to fend for their own to be at the top. Opening in the first-round match on FCD’s side are: Maarten Paes, Jose Martinez, Marco Farfan, Ema Twumasi, Matt Hedges and the rookie Alan Velasco. On United’s line up: Dayne St. Clair, Brent Kallman, Michael Boxall, Kemar Lawrence and Franco Fragapane.
The match began with the dynamic duo and dubbed as “The Jesus & Paul Link Up” in both starters targeting to place 3 attempted shots. In the 9th minute Ferreira tries a through ball but Marco Faran is offside heading within just 7 minutes later, Arriola wins a free kick in the defensive half. The “Link Up” as quoted started out on April 30th and since both the attacker and midfielder have contributed to 21 goal and 10 assists. While Ferreira leads with 12 goals and 5 assists and Arriola with 9 goals and 5 assists, the duo continues to impress in the match.
The defensive half was marked by several attempts by Velasco, as he tried to run the ball in the 30th minute in an attempted right shot assisted by Arriola. Within the 33rd minute Arriola saves an attempt and with a header from the center of the field and missing. It was throughout this time Minnesota, midfielder Emanuel Reynoso began to drive the ball, on the 39th minute Reynoso wins a free kick and immediately is fouled twice before ending the first half.
Heading into the second half and a 0 to 0 score, Reynoso did not leave anything on the field and came in within the 53rd minute and scored a left footed shot from the corner of the box, assisted by the attacker Bongokuhle Hlongwane. The pressure was set on Dallas as each opponent registered 2 fouls each from, Reynoso, Hedges, Servania and Hlongwane.
FC Dallas defense conceded with saved attempts by Arriola who tried a left footed shot and missed from the center of the post and followed up by another attempt missed by Hedges by that same minute, Facundo Quigon scores a header form close range to the bottom right corner. FC Dallas maintained its strong defensive start and just with 20 minutes left of this match the score officially was a draw 1-1.
“This is important, this is a new experience for the guys…we are evolving, the draw just shows our capacity on adapting, on how dynamic we are on the field. We knew this was going to be a difficult game, from now on as I said it is a final for us.” Head Coach, Nico Estevez.
Heading into overtime, a pivotal attempt is missed by Ferreira in a right footed shot missing the goal to the left, which would have finalized Dallas as the winner. On United’s end Emanuel Reynoso who had secured the team’s first goal of the night, attempted a blocked right footed shot and led the team to have several attempts blocked leading to 2 clean fouls by Michael Boxall by the 105 minutes.
“It’s a home game, that always important. I think we had a good strategy in the beginning of the game. We had a lot of build ups; we had the opportunity to create those plays to make a goal. The moments we created those actions to better our advantage on the filed – the assists, the free kicks, and if we would miss that’s when the fine line becomes finer…we must focus our kicks, our assists, our passes, they have
