What we learned in FC Dallas' draw at New England

A late penalty saved what was a rather dull game for FC Dallas.

Photo via New England Revolution

FC Dallas picked up a valuable road draw on Saturday against a fairly depleted New England Revolution squad.

While the draw won’t go down as one of the best games played by FC Dallas this season, a draw away from home, even at this point in the season is something you take and move on from. Especially given that they earned it late on a Paul Arriola penalty kick.

I was hoping to find more from my usual Monday rewatch of the weekend game but in all honesty, there wasn’t that much more to take away from it than what we got on Saturday night. There were some ugly moments and some decent moments, and then the momentum shifted when FC Dallas needed it too late in the match.

Again, it’s a draw on the road. Something you take in this league even if you are desperate for your first road win of the season.

Defense stepped up

Man, that first half for FC Dallas was rough. There were two shots total, none on goal. The defense has a ton of work to do to keep New England from getting anything big on goal. Dallas struggled to get the ball and maintain any solid possession (they somehow managed 40% in the first half, which felt really low).

The difference was that New England failed to get anything on target in the first half outside of a Peyton Miller shot that hit the post in the 8th minute.

As chaotic as the first half appeared, the Dallas defense did its job and managed to hold off the Revs until an unfortunate deflection off Nkosi Tafari found the back of the net midway through the second half.

Despite the goal given up in the second half, the defense continued to prevent the Revs from getting any other big chances on goal. While the Revs are pretty depleted due to injuries, Dallas rode a strong second half to earn a point in this one by winning more duels (27-23 in the second half), flipping the possession to their favor (56-44% in the second half in favor of FCD), earning more big chances on goal (two of them), pinning the Revs into their defensive end more and forcing a penalty kick that Paul Arriola hammered home.

Look, this won’t be a road performance that we’ll look back on at the end of the season and point to as a turning point, but I do think it is one that this group can look at and feel confident about.

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