Zip It: Kansas City at FC Dallas
August 2nd, 2009 . 12:14 am . By: Jay BrownleeAn entire season’s misery for FC Dallas came crashing down on the Kansas City Wizards Saturday night in Frisco, as Jeff Cunningham’s hat-trick-plus-one led the Red Stripes to a 6-0 victory. Coming off the heels of a deflating loss to Real Salt Lake and the departure of star forward Kenny Cooper, Jr. to 2. Bundisliga side 1860 Munich, FC Dallas looked prone to throwing in the towel on a hugely disappointing season. Kansas City has also suffered through a tough year, coming into the match with only five wins and off the recent loss of Jimmy Conrad to an ugly concussion. Dallas began the match wondering where the goals would come from now that Cooper has departed for good. It would take Cunningham 39 minutes to supply the answer. Dallas dominated both play and possession in the first 45 minutes, but it would take an excellent pass from David Ferreira to a streaking Atiba Harris on the right flank to open up the Kansas City defense. Harris continued his run with the ball, pinching in and putting the ball across the mouth of goal to Cunningham, who easily beat goalkeeper Kevin Hartman. Just three minutes later, Dallas completed almost the exact same play from the left side. Dave Van Den Berg found Brek Shea, whose nifty ground service found David Ferreira, whose sharp finish pushed Dallas into the lead at half, 2-0. For the second week in a row, Dallas walked into the locker room all smiles as they dominated a worthy opponent. However, this week, there was not a single Dallas fan who wasn’t worried about a repeat of last week’s debacle. Dallas would not disappoint. Although the second half began more evenly in play, FC Dallas continued to spoil the Wizards’ attempts at swift counter-attacks. Dallas was not able to capitalize quickly, but was able to keep enough pressure on Kansas City to hold off a full-fledged attack. In the 65th minute, the Dallas pressure paid dividends. Cunningham, chasing a poor clearance by Hartman, found the ball but was pulled to the pitch by rookie Rauwshan McKenzie. As the referee pointed to the spot, Cunningham patted his chest, calling for the kick. As opposed to last week’s poor PK attempt, Cunningham looked right, and kicked left, easily beating Hartman. Kansas City looked frustrated, beaten and broken. It got worse. Much worse. Just two minutes later, Claudio Lopez, missing in action for much of the game, attempted to remove Dax McCarty’s head from his shoulders with a vicious elbow. The red was shown to the frustrated veteran, and Dallas looked ready to cruise in killing off the rest of the match against the 10-man Kansas City side. However, the Dallas pressure never relented. Brek Shea put in a beautiful early cross that found Cunningham again, who beat Hartman to the near post for a hat-trick at the 75’ mark. Just three minutes later, David Ferreira jumped on a lazy giveaway from Santiago Hirsig. Ferreira dribbled around the hapless Hartman, pushing Dallas into a five-goal advantage. Cunningham finished out the Dallas barrage on the emotionally drained Wizards in the 89’ as he received a ball from Atiba Harris in the box and slid in a shot that dribbled under Hartman and over the goal-line for his career-high fourth goal of the match. As the final whistle sounded, Dallas had only their second shut-out of the year. This was a great win for a club that had only won four times on the season. The end-to-end domination of Kansas City was unexpected. Even though wins have been scarce for the Wizards, their defense came into the match second best in the league. Other positives for the home-team included Daniel Torres first start of the season at right back for suspended Drew Moor. After last week’s hellish performance, Torres held his own. Goalkeeper Dario Sala also returned to the line-up, but other than a very nice save on a blast from Davy Arnaud, was never seriously challenged. New left-back Jair Benitez continued to impress, allowing Brek Shea to have his best start yet. Of course, the growing mob of Hyndman haters will have nothing to gripe about until Thursday, at least, when Houston comes back to town. As good as winning a match like this is, it’s even more dispiriting to know that the mindless minions who honestly believe the firing of (yet another) head coach would be in the best interests of this club are still out there, disappointed they won’t have another chance to scream for Hyndman’s head again for a few days. For them, Hyndman will never have a chance, proving that the most entrenched and dearest tradition of this club is not championships and trophies, but whiney fans who believe they know better. It’s truly sad. But if tonight’s match and the first half of last week’s game is any indication, things may be finally turning around in Dallas. It’s not the finish, but it’s a start. 21 Comments Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI Leave a comment |
Where the %*^@ did that come from? I hate to mention the Ewing Theory since Kenny is such a great guy, but maybe the will-ohe-or-won’t-he transfer drama was hanging over everybody.
That was an absolutely horrible 2nd half – by Kansas City. One of the worst halves of soccer I’ve seen – since last week…
Kudos to FCD. Benitiz has holes in his game, but brings sooo much. I like what Harris brings too. Don’t underestimate the absence of Rocha. The presence of Sala will be a boost.
Great result and great work from FCD.. but Kansas City made this look too easy… they were simply awful… still it was good to see our guys run riot and take advantage of it.
I don’t think we’ll find it quite as easy on Thursday, but at least the team is starting to gain shape and weak spots are being patched up.
I have several thoughts about this match, but I’ll be brief.
Benitez is a revelation at LB. DVB looked good in the middle with Ferreira. McCarty was bossing the midfield all night. Davies looked comfy in defense. Brek Shea terrorized KC on the flank.
As far as KC goes, they were awful. They lack speed, and with no Conrad, their back line was a joke.
I just want Dallas to win and last night they had the biggest win ever. If Hyndman turns it around then I’m fine with him. I think most others are too. Your rant against the fans will look much better if he can get more wins (they don’t have to be 6-0). If they go back to how they’ve played the majority of the time he’s been here I’ll call for his head. Simple. Win and stay. Lose and go.
Benitez is our Dani Alves! OK, that’s a little overboard, but, damn, that guys got some pace.
He gets caught up field alot, but, he’s so fast, he’s able to catch up, most of the times.
dont forget that CUnningham had a goal disallowed earlier in the game from an offside call. that couldve been 5 for him.
This team is still in flux as i think we’ll get another forward (probably within the league) and Tom Sanchez will come back and start alongside Ferreira once he’s healthy. We’ll look like this:
Sala
Moor-Richetti-Davies-Benitez
Harris-McCarty, Ferreira-DvdB
Sanchez, Striker X/Cunningham
While SH might again try what twotone suggests I think he’ll end up back in the 4141 as below if Sancez comes back soon.
Sala
Moor-Richetti-Davies-Benitez
McCarty
Harris-Sancez, Ferreira-DvdB
Cunningham
I’d be pleasantly amazed if they get a striker good enough to push Cunningham out.
Sanchez, sorry.
Do you really think Sanchez will get the start as soon as he is healthy? I don’t think so. I think Shea gets at least one more start.
Thank you, Jay. Agree that Benitez is a monster. I also agree that the people on the FCD blog are truly brutal, and I’m starting to think it really doesn’t matter who the coach is – these boo-birds just want to rant if we don’t win.
what is the Ewing theory?
It was nice to see Shea get a full 90. It was even nicer seeing him taking advantage of it. I’ve been a fan of his since I moved here and I’ve been waiting for him to get some real playing time.
Of course FCD winning is always nice too
Right. Because you’re “whiney”, “brutal”, or anything else when “ranting” about a coach who’s won a grand total of 9 of the 36 games he’s been in charge. I guess we should just blindly – and, apparently more importantly, quietly – support failure.
Probably good to wait for more than a one game sample before telling all of the “Hyndman haters” to back off.
Hyndman is an idiot… anyone who argues the point is also an idiot
Words of wisdom from el andy
Anyone who says, “anyone who argues the point is also an idiot” IS an idiot.
It’s just my opinion. I didn’t resort to name-calling.
Jay,
I’ve been watching soccer for almost 2 months now. So I think I know a bad coach when I see one. To quote Donald Rumsfield, kind of “A coach has to play with the team he has not a team he wants.” He is here to win and only win, not to rebuild so that in a few years we can be good. He has gotten his year, well atleast two halfs of two different sesaons. Well that should be enough time.
Okay hopefully you know I’m kidding. Yes we should give Hyndman more time. Morrow deserved more time. But I think some of the fans yelling for his head are just have lots of passion for FCD, yes a few of them can’t back anything up nor have a clue what to do instead.
Overall, everyone needs to chill, Stop calling for Hyndmans head, its not going to happen, let him work and build this club, he might do it.
Peace out
If FCD can do the impossible and win 7 out of the remaining 11 games they’ll be in the playoffs.
Oh well…it’s time to start looking at next season. Let the lineup settle in for a few games…see if they can sustain a solid level of play. If not, tweak a piece here and there. Use the rest of the season as a laboratory for the future. I think there is a solid base there, I really do. Defense is coming together nicely…midfield is strarting to click together…just need to find another forward to compete with Cunny.
No offense meant, I shouldn’t have said you were an idiot, obviously this is all fairly lighthearted because at the end of the day, it’s a sports team; you’re certainly entitled to your opinon
Unfortunately for that opinion, he has demonstrated time and time again that he doesn’t have a clue. He sets double standards, runs terrible training sessions, shows blatant preferrential treatment to certain individuals, isn’t held accountable for his actions or mistakes, blames others for his own errors (I could go on for a while), and despite that, is given free reign from the other band of morons (Hitchcock, Hunts) to do it (so really the entire organization sucks).
It’s appalling, and until evidence is presented to the contrary, I will continue to say he is a terrible coach who doesn’t deserve to be where he is.
We are entitled to our opinions. If SH doesn’t like what some of you say, its easy to change – just win and make you shut up. We all want the same thing – a winning team. If SH can bring it to us then we will all talk about what a genius he is. BTW you can’t say he’s not concerned about the future, didnt he have a 12yr old practicing with the 1st team last year?