Steve Morrow made his home debut as head coach of FC Dallas on Sunday as the Hoops played host to the Columbus Crew. But after seeing his team concede two goals in a four-minute span on the way to a 3-0 defeat, Morrow's first game in charge at Pizza Hut Park was truly an inauspicious one.
"I'm disappointed with the outcome and how we played in the second half," Morrow said. "For the most part, in the first half, we possessed the ball pretty well, but in the end, we didn't do enough to get things going through to the goal."
The teams played through a statistically even first half, with the Crew holding a 5-4 edge in shots. But in the end, the Hoops were outshot 16-7, including by an 11-3 margin in the second half. The hosts were put back on their heels for the majority of the second half as Columbus controlled possession and ran out easy winners.
"We addressed those things that we didn't do well in the first half," he said. "But in the end, we lost our legs. The trip to Brazil really took its toll on us, especially in the second half. The lack of preparation really took its toll in the second half."
FCD wasn't without several bright spots, one of which was the performance of second-year player Blake Wagner, who got the starting nod at left back. Wagner was seeing the first action of his young career against an MLS foe and played a solid 69 minutes.
"Blake Wagner did very well for us in the first half and took his opportunity well," Morrow said. "Unfortunately, he ran out of gas in the second half."
Wagner's name is one that FCD fans could hear a lot in coming weeks as earlier in the day it was learned that Chris Gbandi, FCD's first-choice left back and last year's club defender of the year, will miss between four and six weeks with a grade two ankle sprain. Gbandi suffered the injury on Wednesday in a game against the Hoops' Brazilian partner, Clube Atletico Paranaense.
"It felt good to be out there," Wagner said. "I felt like I did all right, especially in the first half. Right now, I am just trying to get fit and used to playing with the first team."
The Hoops were paced by fourth-year midfielder Ramon Nunez, who had four shots. In the eighth minute, the Dallas native got his side's first chance of the match, when he wriggled free to the left of the Columbus net and sent a shot toward the net, but Crew goalkeeper Andy Gruenebaum was there for the save.
Nunez made several other solid chances before leaving the field in the 76th minute. In the 48th minute, he nearly drew first blood for the Hoops when he sent a high lob toward the Crew goal, but it went wide left.
Midfielder Aaron Pitchkolan knows that fatigue is partly to blame for FCD's poor showing in the second half, but also realizes that isn't the only reason for the bad result.
"That (fatigue) is kind of an excuse," he said. "You look at the way we played in the second half -- yes, we were more fatigued. But we lost because we got away from doing the things that we were doing in the first half to keep possession."
For Pitchkolan, the bottom line was that the Crew controlled the run of play after the break and had three goals to show for their efforts.
"We got away from possessing the ball, which we were doing well in the first half," he said. "When you do that, it leads to turnovers, which lead to goals. That's what happened to us today."
Still, the third-year midfielder knows that it's still preseason and Sunday was only one game.
"That's what preseason is for," Pitchkolan said. "We want to work on different situations. We will learn from this and go on from there."
FCD will have a full week of training before traveling to Norman, Okla., to face the Chicago Fire next Saturday in a match to be played on the campus of the University of Oklahoma.
Steve Hunt is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
