One step at a time. That’s what Oscar Pareja wants his side to focus on this weekend.
Facing a comeback challenge that has never been completed in MLS history, FC Dallas will take the field on Sunday night looking for that first goal, and then building from there - needing at least three to keep their season alive.
“I don't want them to think way too much about 'We need a goal in the first 15 minutes,’” Pareja said Thursday night at training. “It's like the old philosophy that you hear from me all the time: One day at a time, one game at a time and this is one goal at a time. And we will be able to survive.”
“That’s the hardest part I think is the first one rather than the third, that’s the biggest one. If we can get that one, I think good things will happen for us,” Homegrown Kellyn Acosta said. “Scoring early would give us confidence, get the fans going, get us all going and motivated to get the other goals.”
In Leg One it took just 10 minutes for Seattle to take control of the series, finding a spark after their first goal to tally three between the 49th and 59th minutes. In Leg Two, Dallas is focused on the full 90 it has to get back into the series.
Three goal for and none against would send the two teams to extra time for the second straight season. Otherwise, a four-goal victory is needed.
“We have to score the first goal before the third one,” Mauro Rosales said. “Coming up and trying to score the first one is going to give us the push that we need and the confidence that we need to get to the result.”
“If you think about it like you need to score three goals right away, or four goals right away it's just overwhelming,” added Tesho Akindele. “If you look at what happened over there, the game was solid for everything but 10 minutes and they scored three goals The same thing could happen here. If it's the 80th minute and it's still 0-0, we'll still believe.”
Last year’s decisive Leg Two was 0-0 after 80 minutes. That’s when Tesho - fresh off the bench - put his team ahead. Even when Chad Marshall scored a potentially devastating header in the 90th minute to put the Sounders ahead, FCD remained calm and answered right away to send it to extra time. It was that same poise that the team showed in LA back in August, rallying from a 1-0 hole to score a pair in the final 5 minutes of extra time in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Semifinal.
Pareja knows that if any team is capable of pulling off a comeback of this magnitude, it's his.
“There is a collage of moments where the guys have shown a lot of character to come back and find results. We know that mode already,” he said. “They are optimistic and they're ready. They're ready to fight. They're ready to find our way to get that result. That's what we have done for the last two years. We're confident to have a positive result.”
