If the opening month of the 2007 Major League Soccer season seemed like a blur to FC Dallas, that's because it was. The Hoops played a league-high six matches in April or an average of one every five days. FCD is off until they travel to Kansas City to face the resurgent Wizards next Saturday. But make no mistake about it: the Hoops want to produce better results in the second month of the season than they did in the first.
But that won't be an easy task. After Kansas City, FCD will travel to Chicago on May 17 for their third appearance of the season on MLS Primetime Thursday. Just three days later, Real Salt Lake comes to Frisco for a May 20 match at Pizza Hut Park, which will be FCD's only home match of May.
Then, on Saturday, May 26, they travel to The Home Depot Center to face Chivas USA, a team that FCD did not defeat on their home field last season. With another tough stretch on the horizon, the importance of the Hoops getting the stretch off to a good start next Saturday in K.C. can't be overemphasized.
"It is important," said FCD head coach Steve Morrow. "When you've had two 1-0 defeats at home, you want to stop the rut. There's no hiding that fact. We want to win every game.
"The schedule was tough at the start but the games in this league aren't going to get any easier as the year goes on. No matter who you play, it's going to be a tough game. The tougher part for us was the schedule and having a lot of injuries and trying to cope with that as well."
The FCD boss added that he has been impressed with what he has seen out of the Wizards thus far in 2007, who have won four of five.
"It's a big important game for us," Morrow said. "They're a team that is playing well and is in good form now. It's a challenge that I hope the players look forward to."
His players agree. "It's absolutely important," said defender Bobby Rhine. "You look across the league and this year more than ever, there is so much parity. Anyone can beat anyone. That's good for MLS but at the same time, it's difficult for a team like us that has to go on the road for much of the month of May.
"That doesn't change your mentality. We feel like we can go on the road and get results. We're not concerned with who we're playing, it's more about how we go about our business when we're playing."
Morrow and the rest of his staff were busy this week looking for ways to remedy a team that has dropped three of their last four matches, and failed to score in that same time frame. Besides normal training sessions in the morning, the FCD coaches also brought in each player for individual video sessions to assess their performance to date this season.
FCD will get a pretty big boost next week when last year's starting goalkeeper Dario Sala, who was suspended for the first six games of 2006, will be ready to see his first action of the regular season.
The Hoops are also expecting a number of players back from injury. Among them are Brazilian central midfielder Marcelo Saragosa and defender Alex Yi. They will definitely need a full complement of players if they are to perform better in May than they did in April.
But it's not all doom and gloom in Frisco. Despite dropping three of their last four, FCD and their seven points remain tied for the top spot in the Western Conference standings. And the issues that surfaced in the last few games - things like poor ball control and a lack of chances in the attacking third, are definitely issues that can be resolved, especially so early in the season.
"It's extremely important," said third-year striker Abe Thompson. "We'll be coming off a bye week and that will be the last time we have a break for a while. It will be very important to start the month off on a good note and to have a better May than we did April."
Steve Hunt is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
