FRISCO - FC Dallas opened up their second half of 2017 with a come-from-behind win north of the border against the Montreal Impact. Before we flip the script to this Saturday's home meeting against Vancouver, let's dive into three big takeaways from the win.
Colman Has Arrived
For much of the last few months the storyline with Cristian Colman has been that the striker is in the right spots, but just can’t finish the chances he creates - almost to a comical point with his run of bad luck. We saw that bad luck in the opening 45 minutes when an obvious goal cleared from behind the line was not called as such.
In the second half though, we saw what Colman was brought to Dallas to do: finish those chances. He struck twice in a 10-minute span, first waiting out the play and sneaking behind his defender on the back post to finish with authority, and second, again running past his defender and bringing down a long ball from Carlos Gruezo at an awkward angle off his shoulder, working around (and almost through) a charging Evan Bush and burying his brace. If his confidence can remain high and we continue to see that Cristian Colman over the second half - lookout MLS.
Depth Shines Bright
Dallas is finally through the long international call-up window with the U.S. Men’s National Team set to wrap up Gold Cup play on Wednesday and players returning to availability Thursday. Maynor Figueroa returned Saturday, but Walker Zimmerman and Mauro Diaz were held out and the team still came away with the full three points. Add that duo, plus Matt Hedges, Jesse Gonzalez and possibly Kellyn Acosta (depending on minutes Wednesday night), and you’ve got a completely different lineup than last week. It’s exactly this depth and sheer number of options that will prove vital down the stretch and into a hopefully lengthy postseason run.
Bunker Down
We saw once FCD went ahead 2-1, Oscar Pareja battened down the hatches and held on for the win. Carlos Cermeno and Walker Zimmerman entered the game late and FCD held less than 30 percent possession over the last 20 minutes. Montreal attempted five shots at goal in that span and only one of them got to Chris Seitz, who made the stop. The team was clearly comfortable keeping the ball in front of them and letting the Impact send numbers forward without conceding any outstanding threats. For a club that had struggles closing out games early in the year, it was important to see.
