All the facts from FC Dallas’ latest draw.
FC Dallas picked up another draw at home on Saturday night, this time to rivals Austin FC in a 1-1 game.
Head Coach Nico
thoughts on the match…“One thing is looking at the possession stat of the match, and then we look at the others and it seems like we dominated the game. We created chances, we had 2.43 expected goals and they created .73. It’s amazing that we weren’t able to score two to three goals. The overall game plan was executed in the first half. I am proud of the guys because we had one day to prepare for this match, and the guys absorbed all of that information that we gave them in a 45-minute session. In the beginning we were a little nervous, but we were able to gain some confidence and we got ourselves into the game. In the second half both teams had an average performance even though they had more of the possession. We had a couple chances and in the counter attacks we were able to hurt them. We have to score in certain plays of the match. We are living in a cruel moment of the sport, any mistake and any misfortune can affect us. Every time that we don’t punish a team, we get punished instead. We saw some things today that we hadn’t seen in other games. We fought out and blocked some shots. That is part of the process and these players deserve better.”
On the defensive organization in the match…“We can’t forget that we played against the best team in the conference. As the game goes through we start to understand situations in a different way. The other thing is that we got exhausted with all the matches we have played recently. We wanted to win this Copa Tejas for us, for our family and for our fans. We put everything we had, but the team needs moments to rest. We had times throughout the match where we were better than Austin but they got a point a point today. The other team had their moments but they took advantage of our fatigueness. In this league it is difficult for a team to win against every team. When we have our moments we have to be more ruthless and score more goals because opponents can punish us with just one opportunity.”
Goalkeeper Maarten Paes
On the team’s attacking and improving the finishing…“Well, it’s a team performance. Yeah, I mean, we all attack together so we just need to stay together. Discuss the game and find the little things that we can improve into the next match and then I’m sure if we keep playing like this, that we will get good results. We’ll get back to the winning way.”
On the last few matches and getting some rest with the long week…“I think after three incredible games so I can think about using some free time. If you think about the game on Wednesday where we gave everything until the last minute, And when I think about today, I think we need some rest mentaly and physically. We need to relax a little bit. Come back for next Saturday in Salt Lake. If we continue to play like this, the wins will come. I’m 100 percent sure about that. And of course they (Real Salt Lake) are a competitor for the playoffs. That will be huge, a huge game for us. Thanks so much.”
Defender Matt Hedges
On having days a week to rest up…“It’ll be a big help. We need to get back in training a little bit and work on a few things. The rest too will help. It’s been very, very hot – training out in the heat every day. It’s difficult, especially playing every three days. So it’ll be good to have those few days of rest and training, I think we need them.”
On the result tonight…“We created chances, but we didn’t score on the day, they got a few chances, they tied it up. And that’s the way it goes. We need to be smarter in situations like that, we can’t be giving them some chances like that.”
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