Rivalry games are weird.
Sometimes they are gritty 1-0 matches. Other times they are blowouts.
And then there are games like this past Saturday, where you have about anything and everything in it. You had an early goal from a guy scoring in his hometown. A missed penalty after the center official forced a retake. A goal given up off a corner kick, only to see the lead return for a moment before video review got involved. And then two penalties in stoppage time.
Yeah, not one but two penalty kicks after 90 minutes were done.
Oh, and we can't forget about the red card to Sam Sarver after that last penalty. Dude, you gotta be smarter than that.
I think it was safe to say that the Texas Derby was a tad drunk. Let’s dive into the result that gave El Capitan a return trip to Frisco.
The cannon returns home
“It was a crazy night, but I’m proud of my guys for fighting back. I thought we were the brighter team and created the bigger chances. They had moments when they controlled possession, but we had some really big opportunities that we didn’t finish. That nearly came back to haunt us. But we kept scrapping and fighting to get the goal, even with four minutes left in stoppage time, when it could have been deflating. We don’t lose our fight. That’s our mentality. We have a championship mentality, and we’re going to keep fighting. We’ll take the point and get out of here, but we know we missed an opportunity.” - Eric Quill following the win.
Don’t worry El Capitan, you’re coming home.
I’ll say one more thing about rivalry games, they’re also never meant to be pretty either. Or at least, they rarely are pretty.
This one had some moments where it was good soccer from FC Dallas. Early on, it almost felt like Dallas was in their own building as they applied a bit of high pressure on the Dynamo midfield and defense to keep guys like Guilherme from getting involved too early.
They forced turnovers in good spots and with the pace on the wings, it resulted in an early goal and penalty kick.
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