Match Report: FC Dallas 2, Chicago Fire 1
May 18th, 2007 . 6:29 am . By: Jamie Fougerousse
The big story entering the game for Dallas was the fact that Captain Carlos Ruiz was not even on the bench for the match. The official word was that he had to win his starting job back as the same team that won on the road against Kansas City Saturday night took the field. Ruiz was on the sideline looking like the last couple weeks have not been kind to him. Chicago was missing Diego Gutierrez due to suspension and Chris Rolfe due to an ankle injury he picked up against Toronto. Coach Sarachan started Calen Carr and French forward Pascal Bedrossian up top, while Chris Armas took Gutierrez’s holding midfield role. Thiago was on the bench, replaced by Ivan Guerrero in Chicago’s highly fluid midfield formation. The game was broadcast nationally live on ESPN2, with Rob Stone, Tommy Smyth, and Eric Wynalda providing commentary. From the opening whistle, when Justin Mapp got the ball with enough time to look up, he gave the Dallas defense fits. The talented but inconsistent attacking midfielder had a good night running at and around the back four. Chicago had more possession early in the game, and in general they had some luck getting behind the Dallas defense on the outside, but the Hoops’ back line recovered well each time and usually was able to cut off the passes to the inside. Chris Armas narrowly missed a toe-poke opportunity from a ball right across the mouth of the open goal in the 11th minute. Dallas continued to weather the storm as Chicago tried again and again to break them down. In the 23rd minute, quite against the run of play, as the Dallas back line was knocking the ball amongst themselves after a free kick, Alex Yi spotted Kenny Cooper making a run between Jim Curtin and Gonzalo Segares near midfield. Yi played a great long ball to Cooper as CJ Brown kept him onside. The ball was a bit long for Cooper, and Matt Pickens came out to meet him about twelve yards out from goal just as Cooper caught up with it. The Dallas striker got a touch to his right, then another forward to knock the ball away, and Pickens caught Cooper as he went by. Chicago fans would argue the ball was not playable once Cooper poked it away, but referee Brian Hall immediately pointed to the spot. Cooper stutter-stepped and buried the PK to take Dallas ahead 1-0. As the half wore on, Chicago still maintained much of the possession, but the Hoops’ counterattack threat was keeping them on their heels a bit. Around the 30th minute the Dallas midfield began to keep a little more of the ball, stringing together smart passes, working to cover for each other defensively, and making smart runs into space to create easy passing opportunities. In particular at this point, Toja and McCarty were the driving force. Still, the Fire threatened repeatedly with forays behind the Dallas defense that only failed to find a clean cross to one of the many streaking attackers inside the six-yard box. FCD’s back four continued to cut off these crosses very effectively, although they ended up conceding corners much of the time. In the 32nd minute, Dasan Robinson got his toe to a bouncing ball in front of the Dallas goal for a pretty bicycle attempt. Dario Sala got a finger to it, but the crossbar saved Dallas from the equalizer. Chris Gbandi had a much improved outing as most of the attacks on his side of the field were snuffed out by intelligent positioning from the Hoops’ stand-in captain. The second half picked up right where the first had left off as Justin Mapp got behind Goodson and fed Calen Carr on the left. Carr played a nice cross right across the six-yard box to a streaking Bedrossian on the right, but Chris Gbandi made a goal-saving slide to push the ball out for a corner. Kenny Cooper hit the crossbar on a shot from around 25 yards after a bad giveaway by Ivan Guerrero in the 54th minute. At this point Dallas was having a little success finding the forwards from the midfield with good possession passing. Then in the 60th minute, Abe Thompson held the ball up with his back to the goal as Jim Curtin played him soft. Thompson fed Juan Toja as he ran into the penalty box and Toja hit a nice low ball to the left side of the goal with his right foot. Dallas 2, Chicago 1. At this point, Coach Sarachan tried to capitalize on the problems his attacking speed was giving the Dallas back line. He made a double substitution replacing Jim Curtin with midfielder Brian Plotkin and Bedrossian with Chad Barrett. He followed that up four minutes later by replacing one of his holding midfielders, Logan Pause, with attacking mid Thiago in the 68th minute. Of course, these subs were almost completely missed by the broadcast as they were busy showing Toja’s resemblance to Nigel Tuflin from Spinal Tap. With the attacking subs in place, Chicago proceeded to lay siege to Dallas’ defensive third. Approaching 70 minutes, Calen Carr had several chances to score, hitting the crossbar and being cut off by Sala on two notable occasions. Again, Mapp and Chicago were having their way with their left side of the field and Dallas relied on cutting off the crosses. In the 73rd minute, Dallas finally lost the battle. For the umpteenth time Calen Carr crashed the six-yard box as Chad Barrett got the ball across to him. This time he finished it to bring the score to Chicago 1, FCD 2. Dominic Oduro’s entrance replacing Abe Thompson helped alleviate some pressure and he created a few chances on counters. What Dallas needed to do was protect the ball when they could actually win it, and at this point Nunez was wasting possessions by attacking on his own. Chicago had more chances to equalize around the 83rd minute as Thiago hit the post and Goodson blocked a good shot with his head. Around the 85th minute, however, the Hoops stubborn defense seemed to win the psychological battle and the Fire began fouling out of frustration. Carr earned a yellow for an off-ball scuffle with Toja. Bobby Rhine replaced Nunez around this time. Bobby slowed up an attack near midfield and ate a bit of time up by earning a foul from Segares, whose dissent got him a yellow. As the clock wound down, Dasan Robinson burned much of the stoppage time by scuffling with Toja and earning a yellow card while committing three fouls in succession. Toja received a yellow for a wild tackle on Brian Plotkin, and Calen Carr flipped Gbandi over with a tackle after Gbandi cleared the ball. Just as Hall looked to be losing control, he finally whistled the nearly five minutes of stoppage time dead. Dallas had weathered yet another storm on the road. The Hoops move into first place in the Western Conference as they return home to host Real Salt Lake on Sunday. Chicago falls to fourth in the Eastern Conference with their third loss in a row. They head to New York next Thursday to face the Red Bulls. 18 Comments Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI Leave a comment |
Please review the tape. You have about 50 errors in this report. The midfiled didn’t hold possession or track runners like Mapp and THAT we the story of the game. Only brave defending allowed the Hoops to win the game.
Agreed. Defense (albeit fairly porous) won this game. They made the tackles when needed, usually at the last second.
Did anyone else think the “show” was crap? We were only shown one sub, they kept the camera on “off the field” stuff way too long and Wynalda is a putz.
Hank, I only said that around the 30th minute they began to have more possession (as in more than before the 30th minute). I also state that Chicago was still finding ways through during that time. They didn’t regain any semblance of control until around the 85th minute.
What I saw was an improvement around the 30th minute that lasted until a little after halftime.
I do appreciate that you always point out anything I write that is incorrect. Thank you for pointing out my “50 errors,” and I look forward to your first compliment of the season during game 9.
From a soccer fan’s perspective, the broadcast was shite. I was ready to put a boot through my screen if we had to endure one more lingering shot of Carr and his headband or Toja and his mullet, all while the play was still going on. Apparently didn’t matter where the ball was. This, however, is the price we pay for having games featured on the Worldwide Leader. If you’ve seen the ads (”You’re a fan, you just don’t know it yet”), you know that these broadcasts aren’t being produced for the soccer fan. They’re trying to hook the more casual sports fan, and they think the way to do it is to show Tommy Smyth’s head with Toja’s hair superimposed on it. Not exactly the way any of us would go about it, but we can’t have it both ways. We want MLS on ESPN, this is what we have to deal with. We don’t have to like how they do it, but we still need to be happy that they are doing it.
Great Report, Thanks. always interesting to see the game from a different point of view. As for ‘The Show’, Waldo was worse than usual this week. The Spinal Tap bit was great though!!!
Nunez was crap last night & is not helping with possession. Saying that, who do we have that is more talented than him without messing with the players behind him.
Toja is totally the man…Richetti was solid stepping into passing lanes and distributing lthought had a quiet night. Nunez looked terrible….couldn’t (and wouldn’t) hit the open man with a pass
Good report Jamie!
I’m so afraid from little Dax out there. I thought Gonzalo Segares was going to kick a hole into his leg on that studs-up, straight-legged challenge that the referee didnt even call a foul on.
marco4 makes an excellent point! Although I didn’t see last night’s broadcast, so I can’ comment on it, I have thought that ESPN has generally done well with Thursday Night Futbol. But IMO, Fox Soccer Channel’s Saturday broadcasts are excellent, with the pre and post game shows. Very professional.
I agree that Nunez is the problem. He is NOT a #10. Case in point, Abe calmly holds the ball in the box and then lays off a beautiful pass to an onrushing Toja. Late in the second half, Ramon takes a nice feed to the right of the box, but instead of giving it to a wide open KC at the top of the box, he takes a shot from a bad angle. Side of the net…turnover. I swear that guy does not want anyone to score but him. I sure he never thought Tojo would score on the pass he made last game.
Twotone, you’re right. Tackles like Segares’ on Dax have caused many injuries. That was an easy yellow. Wasn’t it also Segares that made that awful scissors tackle on Moor from behind? When I saw it live that’s the one I thought would end poorly for FCD.
Fougs, another good report, thanks.
As for ESPN, I’m with Marco4…very happy we are getting national coverage.
Our first eleven years we were lucky to get half our away games televised…by anyone.
Hank is the same guy who predicted Shaka would keep his starting position when Sala’s suspension was over, so he’s not infalable. Then again, the Fire had 80 percent of possession. Not exactly a sign of a midfield that held possession.
I agree with Frisco Fan on Nunez. He has talent, but he needs to learn how to let the game come to him.
The team kind of wanders around for large parts of the game but when they turn it on it is all out fury for a while and they seem to score during those spurts. Chicago and KC had a lot of possesion but until the last few minutes of each game it seemed fairly harmless. I guess it depends on the finishers. Twellman nails his chances while others flounder.
Pegasus you are a genius. Twellman gets good service and he can finish. KC couldnt beat Sala & Carr should have had 2 or 3 goals. Thank god we have Cooper. Improve the service & we will score even more.
a win is a win is a win. Wonder who sits tomorrow for Ruis? wouldn’t suprise at all if Cooper gets “rested”.