FRISCO - Four weeks to the day since FC Dallas’ first preseason training session, most of roster will get their first taste of competitive action on Saturday against Alianza FC.
“We’re excited to just get out there and kick somebody else,” forward Tesho Akindele said. “We’ve been kicking each other for a month, so it’s nice to just get out there and play against somebody different.”
The draft picks and trialists in camp played in two, 60-minute scrimmages during the team’s trip to Arizona while the bulk of the first team roster continued their three-a-day training sessions. Saturday's preseason friendly will be the first of three full matches in the final two weeks leading up to the 2016 season opener.
“Practice is there to get better, but the joy that we get out of playing games, you can’t really compare that to practices,” Walker Zimmerman said. “We’re all excited to see how we’ve grown already as a team and look forward to making this the first step to build off of for 2016.”
With new faces at every field position and players returning to form after a short offseason, the matches will only help polish the team’s on-field chemistry.
“You can see guys really clicking at this point in the preseason,” Zimmerman said. “It’s been definitely a process of learning how other players play, what are their strengths, what are their weaknesses. Now you’re starting to see some chemistry and now we’d like to see that roll over into the game environment.”
“Our strategy is just going to play our style of game,” Akindele added. “It’s not really about the result at this point, it’s just about being able to establish how we want to play the game and hopefully setting the tone for the season.”
