FC Dallas hadn’t had a two-game winning streak in 2024 until Wednesday night when they downed Minnesota United 5-3.
In front of the club’s ninth straight sellout crowd at Toyota Stadium, Petar Musa scored his first hat trick with the club, while Jesus Ferreira scored his fourth goal of the season, and Logan Farrington scored his first career MLS goal.
Musa put FC Dallas on top in the 17th minute as Paul Arriola played a long ball from midfield into the run of the Croatian in the penalty area. Musa made a couple of touches in the penalty box to collect the ball before beating Clint Irwin at the far post.
Minnesota responded with their first goal in the 31st minute on a corner kick from Joseph Rosales that curled into the penalty box and found the head of Bongokuhle Hlongwane, who flicked it past Maarten Paes.
Musa continued his torment of the Loons with his second goal of the night six minutes later. Bernard Kamungo collected the ball along the left flank and crossed it into the penalty area, where a Minnesota defender got a touch on it. Musa was there to collect the ball and fire a one-touch shot for his second goal of the night.
In the 57th minute, the Loons found its second equalizing goal of the night after Hlongwane sent a quick pass backward to Hassani Dotson, who then hit a hard shot that hit off a pair of posts before finding its way into the back of the net.
But once again, FC Dallas responded with Musa’s final goal of the evening in the 62nd minute. Sebastian Lletget made a run at goal and was challenged by a Minnesota defender. The veteran wisely played the ball off to Musa, who tapped in a shot to extend the lead for his eighth goal of the season.
FC Dallas scored an insurance goal in the 75th minute when Farrington played a long ball over Minnesota's defense to Ferreira. The Dallas Homegrown took a few dribbles before catching Irwin off his line.
Farrington extended the Dallas lead in the 90th minute thanks to some creative dribbling in the penalty area after receiving a long ball from Lletget.
Minnesota pulled a third goal in stoppage time after a video review determined that Farrington handled the ball in the penalty area off a Minnesota free kick. Wil Trapp stepped up to the penalty and scored the vistor’s third goal of the night.
Instant reaction: If last Saturday wasn’t a relief, this one may have taken the cake. Musa was goalless since mid-May and stepped up in a big way in this one. He had his first MLS hat trick and nearly had a fourth had it not been for an offside call. Aside from that, FC Dallas gave up a fair amount of chances in the first half but found a way to not fully let Minnesota back into this one. The response each time the Loons got back into the game was excellent from FC Dallas. Hopefully we’re just getting started with this kind of play from this group.
Man of the match: Musa.
What’s next for FC Dallas: A trip to Seattle on Saturday to take on the Sounders for the second time this season.
Regarding the xG value for this match: If you are going by the MLS site you should know they use a poor xG model – I believe it is a custom one and it is frequently way off compared to xG models with more history like Opta. Fbref uses Opta and they have Dallas with 1.5 xG and 9 shots on the night. Another good one is the MLSstat X feed that Drew has been sharing – it tracks very close to Opta.
Second, Fbref (Opta) frequently updates the xG values for a match a few days or a week later. It is not unusual for the initial values to change. My guess is that the number for Dallas will go up a little for this match, specifically Musa’s second goal which only received an xG value of 0.12. That value seems very low considering it was a shot with his favored foot, no defenders around, and only 14 yards out. I wouldn’t be surprised to see that shot revalued significantly higher.
Going into this game, according to the xG numbers so many tout, we should not have scored a goal, and Minnesota should have scored two. Guess what? We scored 5 and the Loons got 3. 'Experts' lean on xG numbers for their own validity, and that is a mistake. Even if both teams play the same players as they did previously, each player changes, grows, even wears out. While I would love to see FC Dallas continue to play like they did last night, I'm actually hoping they will get better. Damn the xG numbers!