It is the Leagues Cup, folks. If you are like me, you are trying your best to get excited by this tournament for FC Dallas.
At least Wednesday night got started off on the right foot for the club, with a 2-0 win over Liga MX side Queretaro FC. Santiago Moreno and Joaquin Valiente scored second-half goals, while Jonathan Sirois continues to ball-out in goal with his latest nine-save shutout.
This breakdown will be a tad shorter than our normal run, again, my excitement for this tournament is pretty low. Let’s dive in.
Slow start, better finish
In a way, this was the exact opposite of the club’s scoreless draw in LA last weekend. In LA, FC Dallas started off with momentum as they found plenty of chances on goal. In this one Wednesday night, Dallas was largely on the back foot. Queretaro found chances, kept Dallas on its heels, and were largely the better team in the opening 45 minutes.
“Yeah, proud of the result, however, our first half wasn't to our standard, and we looked a little nervous in the first 45 minutes. We were playing backwards, and we're not a backwards playing team. At halftime, we made adjustments and mentality adjustments.
We were a different team in the second half, which I was proud of. We were front-footed, vertical, committed to transition on turnovers.
I loved our defending in the box area. They like to put a lot of crosses in the box, and we knew this about them. We wanted to limit their volume of crosses, but also making sure that we're not loose in our marking. I thought our aerial duels in the box were outstanding tonight, so I'm really proud of who we were defensively tonight.” - FCD manager Eric Quill on the result
But the second half felt like a return to form for the club. Whatever it was that Quill said to the club in the locker room stuck, and they came out with energy and forced an early goal as a result
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