FC DALLAS vs VANCOUVER WHITECAPS FC
TOYOTA STADIUM, Frisco, Texas
Sept. 13, 2014 (WEEK 27, MLS Game #261)
7:30 p.m. CT (KTXA-CBS; TSN2)
A pair of clubs looking to consolidate their places in the postseason picture meet when FC Dallas play host to Vancouver Whitecaps FC on Saturday evening at Toyota Stadium. FC Dallas return home still in fourth place in the Western Conference following back-to-back losses, last a 2-1 defeat at Real Salt Lake. Whitecaps FC are one place back in the final playoff position, after ending their goalless and winless runs at midweek in a 2-0 home win against the San Jose Earthquakes.
REFEREE: Ted Unkel. AR1 (bench): Jonathan Johnson; AR2 (opposite): Matthew Kreitzer; 4th: Edvin Jurisevic
MLS Career: 11 games; FC/gm: 23.5; Y/gm: 3.0; R: 3; pens: 4
SUSPENDED: none
WARNINGS:
SUSPENDED NEXT YELLOW CARD: DAL: Blas Perez … VAN: Sebastian Fernandez
SUSPENDED AFTER TWO YELLOW CARDS: DAL: Fabian Castillo, Matt Hedges, Je-Vaughn Watson, Victor Ulloa, Adam Moffat … VAN: Jordan Harvey, Gershon Koffie, Andy O’Brien, Pedro Morales, Mauro Rosales
DISABLED LIST: DAL: Hendry Thomas (season-ending injury) … VAN: Caleb Clarke (season-ending injury)
INTERNATIONAL ABSENCES: DAL: Blas Perez (Panama, Copa Centroamericana) … VAN: Johnny Leveron (Honduras, Copa Centroamericana)
HEAD-TO-HEAD
ALL-TIME (9 meetings): FC Dallas 6 wins, 16 goals … Whitecaps FC 1 win, 7 goals … Ties 2
AT DALLAS (4 meetings): FC Dallas 4 wins, 8 goals … Whitecaps FC 0 wins, 1 goal … Ties 0
FUTURE MATCH: 10/4: Vancouver Whitecaps FC vs. FC Dallas, 4 p.m. PT
2014 (MLS):
7/27: VAN 2, DAL 2 (Mattocks 11; Morales 53 – Perez 29; Michel 39)
- The teams are meeting for the second time this season. Blas Perez and Michel scored for FC Dallas, but Darren Mattocks and Pedro Morales netted for Whitecaps FC to leave the teams in a 2-2 draw July 27 at BC Place.
- FC Dallas have won six of the nine meetings all-time between the clubs, including all four encounters all-time in Frisco. Whitecaps FC’s lone victory in the all-time series came in 2012 at BC Place.
- Coaches record: Carl Robinson vs. DAL: P1 W0 L0 T1 … Oscar Pareja vs. VAN: P7 W2 L3 T2
LAST MEETING (MLS)
- Whitecaps FC took the lead after just 11 minutes. Darren Mattocks opened the scoring when he ran onto an inch-perfect through ball from Gershon Koffie and drilled it home from just outside the area.
- FC Dallas pulled even in the 29th minute when Zach Loyd's header beat Vancouver goalkeeper David Ousted but crashed off the crossbar before falling to Blas Perez, who put the rebound high into the net from just four yards out.
- FC Dallas went up 2-1 with six minutes remaining in the first half. Carlyle Mitchell jumped for a long ball into the box with his arm raised and made clear contact, and referee Kevin Stott pointed to the spot. Michel then duly converted the penalty kick.
- But Whitecaps FC canceled out that goal with a penalty of their own in the 53rd minute. Moises Hernandez was adjudged to have handled the ball right near the edge of the box, and Pedro Morales converted the penalty to leave the game knotted up.
- VANCOUVER WHITECAPS FC (4-2-3-1): David Ousted - Steven Beitashour (Nigel Reo-Coker 90), Johnny Leveron, Carlyle Mitchell, Jordan Harvey - Gershon Koffie, Matias Laba - Erik Hurtado (Kekuta Manneh 68), Pedro Morales, Sebastian Fernandez (Omar Salgado 90) - Darren Mattocks.
- FC DALLAS (5-3-2): Raul Fernandez - Zach Loyd, Matt Hedges (Mauro Diaz 46), Stephen Keel, Walker Zimmerman, Moises Hernandez - Victor Ulloa, Michel, Adam Moffat - Tesho Akindele (Ryan Hollingshead 90), Blas Perez (Peter Luccin 84).
FC DALLAS
FC Dallas suffered their second loss in as many games, falling 2-1 to Real Salt Lake on Saturday evening at Rio Tinto Stadium. FC Dallas sit in fourth place in the Western Conference with 42 points from 27 games.
LAST MATCH
- Real took the lead in the 31st minute. A shot by RSL midfielder Luke Mulholland rebounded and fell at Robbie Findley's feet — and he buried it in the net to FC Dallas goalkeeper Raul Fernandez's right.
- The visitors drew level just after the hour. After FCD's Tesho Akindele was fouled just outside the box, Michel stepped up and hit a deadly strike through a crowd of bodies that RSL goalkeeper Nick Rimando had no chance to reach.
- But lightning struck 15 minutes later. Alvaro Saborio, out injured for almost four months, had barely finished jogging onto the field as a substitute to huge cheers when he headed home a corner kick from teammate Javier Morales for the winning goal.
- FCD head coach Oscar Pareja made two changes to the team that fell 1-0 to the Chicago Fire at Toyota Park. Peter Luccin and Michel came into the team, in place of Ryan Hollingshead and Tesho Akindele.
- FC DALLAS (3-2-3-2): Raul Fernandez - Je-Vaughn Watson, Zach Loyd, Matt Hedges - Victor Ulloa, Michel - Kellyn Acosta (Mauro Diaz 81), Peter Luccin (Tesho Akindele 46), Jair Benitez (Moises Hernandez 77) - Andres Escobar, Fabian Castillo.
TEAM NEWS
- FC Dallas have lost back-to-back games coming off a four-game winning streak, following the loss at Real Salt Lake. It’s their first consecutive losses since losing four in a row from April 26-May 10.
- “The team that I saw today, it was much better,” Pareja said. “The urgency, everything was better than the last game. It makes us feel optimistic about finding a way to bounce back from these two results.”
- Michel scored directly from a free kick in the defeat at RSL, his eighth goal of the season, after missing the previous match through suspension. All of his goas have come from deadball situations – he’s scored three goals directly from free kicks, and has also converted five penalty kicks.
- “Michel keeps bringing some special things,” Pareja said. “He scores goals. He is effective with set pieces. His tactical approach to the game is giving us confidence. We’re happy with his job, happy to have him back.”
- After 14 consecutive starts, Tesho Akindele came off the substitutes’ bench to start the second half. Peter Luccin had started his first game since June 7 in the FCD midfield.
- “Bringing in Tesho, he helped us,” Pareja said. “I thought we did more things going forward, Fabian had more company there, the team found a better rhythm. We were more aggressive. Another forward helped us, we were more confident.”
- For a second time this season, FC Dallas went with three in the back, also using the tactical scheme in the 2-2 draw with Vancouver Whitecaps FC on July 27.
- “I love this team more when things aren’t going our way. I can say that they put all of their heart into this game,” said Pareja. “ … [In the second half,] we were more aggressive. I think that our other forward helped us. We gained a lot more confidence with ourselves in the second half for sure.”
VANCOUVER WHITECAPS FC
Vancouver Whitecaps FC put an end to their winless and goalless streaks, defeating the San Jose Earthquakes 2-0 on Wednesday evening at BC Place. Whitecaps FC sit in fifth place in the Western Conference with 37 points from 27 games.
LAST MATCH
- Whitecaps FC finally found the back of the net after 7-1/2 hours to open the scoring. San Jose center back Victor Bernardez bundled over vancouver's Kendall Waston in the box at a free kick in the 37th minute, and after referee Jose Carlos Rivero pointed to the spot, Pedro Morales stepped up to drill the penalty past Quakes 'keeper Jon Busch.
- Whitecaps FC then doubled their advantage in the 56th minute when Waston powered home a Morales corner with a sharp header from the heart of the area, through the legs of Cordell Cato on the goalline.
- Whitecaps FC head coach Carl Robinson made two changes to the team that reached a scoreless draw with D.C. United at BC Place. Steven Beitashour came back into the back four for Ethen Sampson, and Erik Hurtado started up top in place of Darren Mattocks.
- VANCOUVER WHITECAPS FC (4-3-1-2): David Ousted - Steven Beitashour, Andy O'Brien, Kendall Waston, Jordan Harvey - Mauro Rosales (Mehdi Ballouchy 62), Matias Laba, Russell Teibert - Pedro Morales (Nicolas Mezquida 86) - Sebastian Fernandez, Erik Hurtado (Darren Mattocks 90).
TEAM NEWS
- Whitecaps FC put an end to their winless streak after four matches, after two losses and two draws. With the victory they did move back into the final playoff position in the Western Conference.
- “Every week it seems to change, every result it seems to change,” Whitecaps FC head coach Carl Robinson said. “All I've said all along is take care of your business, that's all we can control. We can't control what San Jose, what Colorado, what Chivas, what Portland do unless we're playing them. We've got to control ourselves and we did that. I just want to be above that red line. That's what we've got to aim for.”
- Whitecaps FC also put an end to their goalless drought after exactly 7-1/2 hours, their first goal in exactly a month and 450 minutes of game time. The last goal had come in the Aug. 10 win vs. Sporting KC.
- “I'm disappointed because we haven't scored in open play because it's another game without [one],” Robinson said. “We won the game today, whether [the strikers] score or not. It's not about any one individual. What pleased me the most was it was a team performance, capped off by guys filling in for each other, like Sebastian [Fernandez]. He was infectious to all the other players. It's not easy when you're in a tricky patch to perform but we did that.”
- While Whitecaps FC were shut out at the attacking end for a fifth time in the last seven games, they also recorded their first defensive shutout in the same span of matches. They’ve played to three scoreless draws in that time, dating back to July 30.
- Pedro Morales converted a penalty for his eighth goal this season, his sixth from the penalty spot. His last six goals have all come from the spot.
- Morales also collected an assist, his 10th of the season, putting him in a tie for fifth in the MLS assist table. Morales has played a part in each of Whitecaps FC’s last three goals.
- “Pedro getting the penalty was good for his confidence. I think he was very good in the second half. We haven’t scored in four games but if those four games were littered throughout the season when we were scoring three or four goals and going away to Columbus and winning 1-0 then no one asks the question,” Robinson said. “But we need to get better. That’s a beginning but we still have a lot of hard work to do. And the hard work starts now.”
- Kendall Waston made his third consecutive start since his arrival at the club and scored his first Whitecaps FC and MLS goal. Waston also drew the penalty leading the opening goal of the match.
- “I still think he can get even better. I think there are areas of his games that he needs to work on, and we’ll work on those with him,” said Robinson. “When he scored the difficult header, he ran off to celebrate and you see a big smile on the big guy’s face but you have the rest of the team hanging off him and he doesn’t even know they’re on his back, which is how big he is and how strong he is and it was an excellent performance by him.”
- The Waston goal came from a corner kick, just the second goal this season scored from a set piece by Whitecaps FC. They have both been from corners, the first on July 12 in the loss to Chivas USA.
- “I actually want us to play for corners and free kicks, because I think the big man can score at any opportunity. It's important, because top games of football around the world are won on set pieces – and today we won the game on set pieces,” Robinson said.
