Lineups
FC Dallas
— Maarten Paes; Sam Junqua, Nkosi Tafari, Sebastien Ibeagha, Ema Twumasi (Tsiki Ntsabeleng – 81’), Liam Fraser (Patrickson Delgado – 81’), Sebastian Lletget, Paul Arriola, Dante Sealy (Bernard Kamungo – 81’), Eugene Ansah (Logan Farrington – 71’), Petar Musa

Substitutes not used — Jimmy Maurer, Omar Gonzalez, Marco Farfan, Carl Sainté, Herbert Endeley.

Austin FC —Brad Stuver, Hector Jimenez (Guilherme Biro – 78’), Brendan Hines-Ike, Julio Cascante, Jon Gallagher, Alexander Ring, Daniel Pereira, Jáder Obrian (Matt Hedges – 83’), Sebastián Driussi, Owen Wolff, Diego Rubio (Gyasi Zardes – 90+)

Substitutes not used — Stefan Cleveland, Jhojan Valencia, Emiliano Rigoni, Ethan Finlay

Scoring Summary:
DAL: Eugene Ansah (Petar Musa) — 50’
ATX: Julio Cascante (Jon Gallagher) — 54’
ATX: Diego Rubio (Sebastián Driussi) — 70’

Misconduct Summary:
DAL:
Maarten Paes (caution) — 19’
ATX: Owen Wolf (caution) — 24’
ATX: Diego Rubio (caution) —- 57’
ATX: Julio Cascante (caution) — 88’
DAL: Nkosi Tafari (caution) — 90+’

Attendance: 20,738
Weather: 77° Clear

Stats


FC DALLAS POSTGAME QUOTES
Head Coach Nico Estévez

On his takeaways from the match…
“Due to the circumstances, the injuries that we have, we approached the game trying to win it. We don’t think about excuses or missing key players, we knew that the group that we had today could get a good result today and compete well. We competed overall very well in the first half. We didn’t concede a goal, we didn’t create much offensively but the adjustments we made in the second half helped us get a little bit more dangerous in their zone.

At the end, we had four shots on target and they had four but they scored two goals. One of the issues we’re having is that we’re conceding goals from situations that we should control. That goal from the throw-in is something that can’t happen. We’re working really hard every week but sometimes when you’re in a bad situation it’s hard to turn things around. On the second goal there was only one player in the box so we have to do better. We have to read that in-swinging cross, we have to anticipate the drop, the ball goes there and we have to make contact with the opponent player. Other than that, the subs that we made changed the formation and helped the team control the game more. We made the opponent make adjustments and created some crosses, set pieces and situations where we could score another goal to tie the game. But we didn’t and we’re very disappointed.

We’re in a difficult moment to get a result but, for us, it’s 24 hours of being disappointed and tomorrow starts a new opportunity to get three points against St. Louis.”

On his message to the team…
“One of the important things is, I don’t know any big teams or players that haven’t gone through tough moments and failure. Big teams aren’t recognized because they win, it’s because they bounce back when they’re having a tough time. This is what we’re doing, we’re bouncing back. We know we’re a little bit low on confidence, when you play with confidence it makes you better, when you play without confidence you’re worse. We can’t get into that mood where everything is pessimistic, everything is bad. There were some positives today and we’ll build on them. The effort and sacrifice from everyone was there but there are other things we have to do better, obviously. We’re getting closer after this game to winning again.”

On Eugene Ansah’s first start…
“Eugene did a great job tonight. He was committed to the task despite it being a difficult game for a forward, he did a lot of defending. Austin was playing at home, they were pressing our back line a lot. When Ansah got some opportunities to attack he did a good job. He was a threat running in from behind and that is why we scored the first goal of the game.”

Defender Sam Junqua
Takeaways from tonight’s game…
“We have had a hard time competing for a solid 90 minutes. There have been times that we have let ourselves down. We checked a number of the boxes today but giving away the goals that we did makes it hard for us to win games. We defended well, we even frustrated Austin at times.”

How to keep improving…
“These are the moments where we get to see players' true characters. It is easy when things go your way, but now is the time that we need to show our character and respond. We can’t throw away the good things we do throughout the matches and continue to build.”

Midfielder Sebastian Lletget
Thoughts on the match…
"It’s disappointing. You get the goal you've been kind of defending your life for and then, I'm not sure how long it lasted, but you just can't let a lead slip like that. It's on all of us. I thought as the group, it wasn't pretty but we at least got the lead and it only lasted a couple of minutes. So, yes, it's very disappointing. Now we’re seeing St. Louis away which is a tough game but it's only up from here."