FC Dallas reclaimed Copa Tejas on Wednesday night in a 3-1 win over rivals Austin FC.
Lineups
FC Dallas: Maarten Paes, Marco Farfan (Omar Gonzalez), Sebastien Ibeagha, Nkosi Tafari, Ema Twumasi; Paul Arriola (Dante Sealy), Sebastian Lletget, Tsiki Ntsabeleng (Sam Junqua); Bernard Kamungo (Eugene Ansah), Logan Farrington, Petar Musa (Carl Sainte)
Subs not used: Jimmy Maurer, Amet Korca, Tomas Pondeca, Anthony Ramirez
Austin FC: Brad Stuver, John Gallagher (CJ Fodrey), Julio Cascante (Matt Hedges), Leo Vaisanen, Guilherme Biro; Owen Wolff (Jhojan Valencia), Daniel Pereira; Ethan Finley, Sebastian Driussi, Jader Obrian (Alex Ring), Gyasi Zardes (Diego Rubio)
Subs not used: Zan Kolmanic, Hector Jimenez, Stefan Cleveland
Scoring Summary:
FCD: Paul Arriola (Logan Farrington, Tsiki Ntsabeleng) - 10’
AFC: Gyasi Zardes (Daniel Pereira) - 16’
FCD: Petar Musa - 56’
FCD: Marco Farfan (Arriola) - 74’
Misconduct Summary:
AFC: Julio Cascante - 55’
FCD: Logan Farrington - 56’
FCD: Petar Musa - 56’
AFC: Sebastian Driussi - 60’ (ejection)
FCD: Ema Twumasi - 63’
FCD: Maarten Paes - 90+1’
AFC: Daniel Pereira - 90+8’
Stats
Graphics via x.com/MLSStat
FC DALLAS POSTGAME QUOTES
Interim head coach Peter Luccin
On the win over Austin FC…
“It was very important for us to win in our house. But, there are so many things that we need to improve. It was Copa Tejas which is important for the club. I’m happy but at the same time, there’s some concern. We have another game in four days in New England and have to change some attitude and some behavior. I’m very happy with the team responding after the tie, it was very good and we made some adjustments for the second half. Right now you can see me, I’m not reacting because we need to do better. Very happy about the win with our fans but we have a game in four days and we have to change some things if we want to win our first game away.”
On playing from the back and counter-attacking…
“This is FC Dallas style, we want to play from the back. I like the ball, I think the team likes the ball, but to play from the back, we need courage to show in the right moments. This is a thing that we’ll have to improve because in the very specific and important moments, we didn’t show up for the ball. But it’s fine, we are working on that and it’s going to take time. Right now what we can see and I think what everybody can see is that the team is ready to compete. The team is competing every single game. Now we have to compete, we have to be smart and play with courage. All of that stuff, we will have to increase our level a bit.”
Forward Petar Musa
On what this win means…
“It means a lot, especially with this hard week. We have a really hard schedule right now with so many games in a short time. I'm really happy because tonight we saw this team's spirit, maybe we didn't play that nice soccer, but we fought together as a team until the end. I'm happy for this teamwork and three points.”
On how he is feeling after this week…
“For all of us (MLS teams), it is the same schedule so we cannot make any excuses. I was sick with a small cold so I personally haven't felt very good. I didn't train with the team for three days this week, I just stayed in bed. For me today, it was hard but my teammates helped me and in the end, it's a great night. We won.”
Defender Nkosi Tafari
General thoughts on tonight’s game for him and the team…
“This is a massive game for the team. For me, I don’t care, I'm more of a pawn in the system. This is a massive game for the team. We were four points behind Austin going into this game, we know where the playoff spot is and we’re one point behind them. We’re closing the goal differential gap, we know what we’re doing.”
On winning Copa Tejas…
“It’s massive. Like I was saying, we know what the table looked like going into this game and now we closed the gap on a playoff spot. It’s been a rough season for us, a lot of injuries, a lot of adversity. We pride ourselves on that and being strong and tonight was really massive.”
Defender Marco Farfan
On winning Copa Tejas…
“It means a lot, thinking about how the whole season has gone from the start to now you know we're still fighting, we're still pushing for playoffs and being able to get this win means a lot.”
On scoring his first goal of the season…
“The goal means a lot to me, it was a special goal. I saw Paul (Arriola) running into space and it was difficult to catch up to Paul in space, I knew I had to put out the right pass and for me that was the best part of the play, I just had to finish the play and score.”
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