Oscar Pareja will get a second shot at the Seattle Sounders after his much improved FC Dallas beat the Vancouver Whitecaps 2-1 on Wednesday in the Knockout Round of the MLS Cup Playoffs. Dallas got goals from Tesho Akindele and a penalty from Michel. The Pareja-led Colorado Rapids lost to the Sounders in the Knockout Round last season.
3 things we learned as FC Dallas advanced with a 2-1 win over Whitecaps
FC Dallas get a date with the Sounders.
Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports
Dallas struck first, finding a goal in the 40th minute off the foot of Rookie of the Year candidate Akindele. The play started off innocuous enough, with a throw-in deep in Dallas' half. Blas Perez was first to it and nodded a header toward the Dallas' goal. Andy O'Brien took a bad line, allowing Mauro Diaz to get behind him. Kendall Waston seemed to be caught off guard, and allowed Diaz to take a touch to get past.
Diaz ran into the open space, basically on a two-on-one with Jordan Harvey, who was left to choose between stopping the ball and minding the weak side. He went to the ball. That left Akindele all alone on the right flank and he blasted his shot past David Ousted for a 1-0 lead.
Mauro Rosales got a great look at an equalizer in the 46th minute, but his free kick from about 22 yards out hit off the underside the crossbar and stayed out.
The Whitecaps had another golden chance to equalize in the 60th minute. Waston was able to get free in the box on a corner kick, and had the ball hit off his chest. But he was unable to control it. Still, the rebound went out to Kekuta Manneh. His shot from a sharp angle was saved by a diving Chris Seitz.
The equalizer finally came in the 65th minute. A poor clearance off a corner kick fell to the feet of Gershon Koffie, whose shot was blocked, but went to Erik Hurtado. His shot deflected off Victor Ulloa and beat Seitz inside the near post.
Dallas retook the lead in the 83rd minute on a penalty by Michel. Again, it was a throw-in that cause the problems for Vancouver. This time Koffie missed a header and the ball bounced into Waston’s arm. Although it looked incidental and Waston seemed to be trying to get his arm out of the way, Geiger pointed to the spot. Michel easily finished the spot kick.
Dallas will play the Sounders on Sunday in the first leg of the Western Conference semifinals.
Dallas lineup: Seitz, Loyd, Hedges, Zimmerman, Watson, Castillo, Michel, Ulloa (Acosta 76), Diaz (Escobar 80), Akindele, Perez (Hollingshead 91).
Goals - Akindele (40), Michel (83)
Whitecaps lineup: Ousted, Harvey, Waston, O’Brien, Sampson, Laba, Koffie (Mezquida 86), Fernandez, Morales (Manneh 58), Rosales, Hurtado (Mattocks 78)
Goals - Hurtado (65)
Three things we learned
1. FC Dallas is going to be a handful for the Sounders: The Western Conference was pretty much full of tough teams, so it’s not like there were any bad teams, but Dallas matches up reasonably well with the Sounders. Although they lost 2 of 3 matches this year, they led in all of them and the Sounders needed late goals in both of their wins. Nothing we saw from Dallas tonight suggests they are going to go down easy.
2. Mauro Diaz is a difference maker: It had been about 10 weeks since Diaz started a match and he’d only played 26 minutes in the last month, but he showed that he doesn’t need many touches to be dangerous. Even on the goal he set up, he only actually needed to take a couple touches, letting the ball do a lot of the work, before picking out Akindele. Given time and space, Diaz is absolutely deadly and starting him means a guy like Andres Escobar is coming off the bench. That’s scary.
3. Mark Geiger smh: Did that ball hit Waston’s arm? Probably. But there’s no way that he could have interpreted as making any kind of purposeful motion and his arm was almost against his body. That Geiger chose to whistle for the penalty -- and so late -- was really a shame. This was a solid match that didn’t deserve to be decided by a questionable penalty. Geiger may be the best MLS has to offer ... and that’s a bit scary.
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