Match Report: FC Dallas 1, Colorado Rapids 0
June 24th, 2007 . 8:26 pm . By: Jamie Fougerousse
Juan Toja’s follow-up goal off the rebound from a shot by Clarence Goodson was the difference in Dallas’ first trip to Dick’s Sporting Goods Park. The game featured few chances for either side, but the cards flew in abundance as another page was written in Dallas’ rivalry with Colorado. The Hoops welcomed back midfielder Pablo Ricchetti from yellow-card suspension as they entered the last match of a three-game road trip. This allowed Dallas to revert to the 4-3-3 Coach Steve Morrow has preferred lately. Up front, Carlos Ruiz made his first start since May 20th, replacing Abe Thompson. Greg Vanney returned from injury to the Rapids’ left back position. In the midfield, still missing Pablo Mastroeni to Gold Cup duty, the Rapids regained the services of Kyle Beckerman, who had been suspended. This meant Nick LaBrocca sat down, while the return of Nico Hernandez at left midfield allowed Herculez Gomez to slot in next to Conor Casey up front. Colorado returned home after dropping all three matches in their three-game road trip. The game had little rhythm in the first half. It was basically two teams feeling each other out, knocking the ball around, and giving it away before getting into dangerous situations. The challenges were physical, but neither team seemed too intent on getting out of the middle third of the field. In the 15th minute, Colorado defender Ugo Ihemelu headed a ball back to his keeper, Bouna Coundoul, at the top of the box. Coundoul had come out and Ihemelu’s high header almost went right over the keeper. Coundoul managed to snag it as Carlos Ruiz hounded both of them waiting to pounce. Clarence Goodson looked a little shaky early in the first half, losing a ball in the back to the Rapids in the 18th minute. He managed to win that one back before it developed into something dangerous, and he went on to have a strong game. Dallas’ best chance of the first half happened in the 20th minute. While the TV coverage was showing a replay of a possible handball by Marcelo Saragosa on a Colorado corner kick, the unseen counterattack ended with Arturo Alvarez on the opposing end line dribbling towards the goal. He did a great job of holding up the ball and holding off defenders until he could lay it off to an open Dominic Oduro on the six-yard line. Oduro had most of the goal open but he was not set up well to hit it. His first-time shot went right at the foot of Ihemelu and Coundoul scooped up the rebound. While Goodson seemed to get his head in the game after his first giveaway, Alex Yi had a rough night next to him. In the 27th minute, his header of a long kick from Coundoul near midfield went backwards and fell to the feet of an onrushing Herculez Gomez. Gomez got a foot to it and knocked it just wide of goal. Goodson snuffed out two attacks around the 34th minute with excellent tackles, the first of which may have prevented a goal due to the numbers Colorado had waiting on the Conor Casey cross Clarence cut off. Casey re-injured his knee making that cross and had to be replaced by Jose Cancela in the 37th minute. That change moved Jovan Kirovski up into Casey’s forward role so that Cancela could slot into the attacking central mid spot. In the 38th minute, referee Richard Heron and Juan Toja got into a pretty heated exchange about Toja not giving 10 yards on a free kick quickly enough. Heron seemed pretty agitated by their exchange, and that may have contributed to Pablo Ricchetti’s yellow card for a high kick on Herculez Gomez just a minute later. At this point the game really got chippy as defender Mike Petke took down Oduro with a high-footed tackle as Oduro charged through the middle. Petke was cautioned since the ball was nowhere around when the contact happened. Colorado also broke up several Dallas fast break attacks with fouls, one on Oduro and another on Gbandi. Dallas started to get some balls in behind the Colorado defense at the end of the first half, but neither Toja nor Ruiz were able to get onto their chances. In first-half stoppage time, as Colorado pressured the Hoops’ back line, Goodson hit an awkward ball to Yi that was driven pretty hard at head height. Yi headed it forward, but it fell right to Nico Hernandez. Hernandez laid it off to Herculez Gomez, who sliced across the top of the box from left to right and made enough space to get off a good shot on goal before Goodson could close him down. Sala did well to parry the near-post effort wide. Coach Morrow replaced Alex Yi with Bobby Rhine at halftime, the familiar back line substitution bringing Drew Moor inside. Yi had a rough first half, and Rhine will likely be the starter when Moor is gone next weekend for Copa America duty, so the motivation could have been one or both of those. As Rhine settled into his right back slot, he looked more and more solid as the first ten minutes passed. He had some great tackles and did a great job with his positioning. A Colorado free kick on their right side of Dallas’ penalty area produced a header from a free Kyle Beckerman that was just wide of the Dallas goal. Both coaches replaced a forward in the 60th minute, as Morrow brought in Abe Thompson for Oduro and Clavijo replaced Jovan Kirovski with Jacob Peterson. Dallas finally broke through in the 62nd minute. After the Rapids cleared a Dallas corner, Pablo Ricchetti collected the ball on the left side of the field just inside midfield. He passed up the left sideline to Drew Moor, who was still up from the corner. Moor’s first touch backward created a little space from Terry Cooke, and Moor swung a good cross right to the top of the 18. Thompson met the cross and flicked it to the far post, still about seven yards out, with his head. Ruiz was making a run there and he knocked it back to Goodson, also still up from the corner. Goodson ripped a good shot on goal at the near post. Coundoul stopped it, but he spilled it right across the goal line. Thompson and Toja raced to it, Toja won, and he poked it in to give Dallas the 1-0 lead. Chris Gbandi earned a yellow card in the 66th minute for pulling Herculez Gomez’s shoulders as Gomez tried to get under a long ball. That card means Gbandi sits next week and Dallas will have two defensive changes to cope with. For about five minutes after the goal Colorado rallied well to pressure Dallas. The Dallas back line had some errors but did a great job of recovering from them each time. The Hoops gave up several corners, and Saragosa began to look pretty gassed. Sala cut off some crosses well, too, to help keep Dallas on top. Around minute 70, the boys from Dallas began to find some stretches of possession. They even sprung Ruiz behind the entire Colorado back line in the 73rd minute. Ruiz held the ball too long, Coundoul came out, and he took what should have been a certain goal right off the foot of the Dallas captain. As the last ten minutes approached, Clavijo replaced Prideaux with striker Roberto Brown to throw a three-man attack at Dallas. The Dallas defense responded very well and shut down attempt after attempt to get behind them. The ones that did make it through were cut off by Sala. The only criticism in this stretch was that Dallas earned two more yellow cards, one for Goodson and one for Sala. Dallas continued to find good counterattacking opportunities as the minutes wound down. Coundoul saved two excellent shots on goal by Ruiz in the 84th and 86th minutes to keep his team in the game. Gomez then had a good chance to tie in the 93rd minute. Ihemelu served in a good cross from the right that landed at Gomez’s feet just outside the center of the Dallas penalty area. The Hoops back line played it way too soft, allowing Gomez time to turn and shoot just to the right of the goal. There was some late drama as well, with Ihemelu getting sent off for a reckless tackle on Wagenfuhr near midfield in the 94th minute. Since I’ve gotten into the habit of weighing in on these controversial tackles this season, I’ll give my two cents here. The red came because Ihemelu completely missed the ball. Only Ugo knows if he just wildly crashed into Wags out of frustration or if he simply missed, but had he gotten any of the ball it may not have even been a foul. After watching it several times at various speeds, his momentum seemed to aim his tackling foot well behind the ball, where Wags was. So Dallas did well to end their road swing with a scrappy victory that may have been by a much wider margin without the outstanding performance of Bouna Coundoul. The Rapids remain 4th in the Western Conference as they head to RFK Thursday to face DC. Dallas moves six points clear of Houston at the top of the West. The Hoops host the Dynamo at Pizza Hut Park next Saturday.
FC Dallas (8-6-1) vs. Colorado Rapids (4-6-3) Scoring Summary: FC Dallas Lineup:
Substitutes Not Used: Ray Burse, Michael Dello-Russo, Ramon Nunez, Aaron Pitchkolan Colorado Rapids Lineup:
Substitutes Not Used: Dan Gargan, Zach Thornton, Daniel Wasson, Chris Wingert
Misconduct Summary: Referee: Richard Heron 6 Comments Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI Leave a comment | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Yi was taken off at halftime with a sore hamstring and not poor play. Let’s hope he’s good to go Saturday or we will be really stuck in the back.
we all need to know that the referees have talked about Tyrone Marshalls terrible tackle that broke one of the young American phenoms legs and they are watching out for that, especially for FCD. That did not bode well for Ugo, considering the time of the tackle (extra time), the location (just beyond the midfield stripe in front of the bench), the speed (Ugo was going full blast), the ferocity (Ugo went over the ball and was straight-legged), and the noise ( it wasnt as cracking as Kenny’s, but it did hit Wags shinguard and you could hear it out loud).
given all this, the 2 tackles are just alike, with only the result (leg broken) and the type of player (USMNT v. FCD reserve) being different.
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Just wanted to give mad props to the Dallas fans that come up for the game, you really added a lot of atmosphere to the stadium and it really helped me get into the game more. That’s awesome you guys came all the way up to Denver for the game. Go Hoops!
Those two tackles were just alike? Marshall’s tackle was not only high but the ball wasn’t even on the ground. Ugo came in a tad late. That tackle was no worse than a few others in the game. IIRC Goodson got one with 10-15 minutes left where he completely hacked Herc down hard from behind. There was no need since Herc wasn’t going to get to the ball. But I don’t see how it was any more reckless (that is, hard + something that’s going to injure another player).
Hey Allen,
How’s the weather in Colorado this morning? Take off your anti-Dallas glasses for a moment. Goodson may have fouled Gomez but there was nothing about it that was going to cause an injury. He really got the card based on where it happened on the field, it was very close to a 50-50 play.