It came down to the final 10 minutes, but FC Dallas claimed a hard-fought victory in a friendly against Tigres UANL of the Mexican Primera Division, winning 2-0 on Wednesday in the first leg of the Rio Grande Plate.
Arturo Alvarez made a great run through the Tigres back line in the 83rd minute for the first goal, then Marcelo Saragosa - signed just hours before kickoff - put the game away for FC Dallas in the 87th minute.
"I feel good. I feel very happy right now," said Saragosa. "To have a goal in my first 20 minutes (with FC Dallas) is great."
Saragosa will add depth to the Hoops midfield, in addition to relief for the currently injury-laden squad.
"He can play both ways," said Clarke. "He's good defensively, reads the game well -- in L.A. he was asked to sit more and defend but I think he's better when he can get forward and express himself a little bit. The other good thing is he's 24 years of age and that's a big plus for us."
On a night that was dominated by the Hoops reserves, Alvarez was the highlight of it all and was able to get enough space to score a goal and possibly some consideration from Clarke for more MLS minutes.
"I've been playing well with the reserve team and been trying to get my confidence as high as possible and Colin knows that I'm ready to go and play or start," Alvarez said.
"I had chances throughout the whole game. I just kept going to my left and this time I decided to go to my right and I don't know if they weren't expecting that or what, but thank God I got the goal."
The match was dubbed a friendly but it became a pretty fierce battle once the fans and players got into it.
"Yeah, it was -- I got a nice welcome into the match," said fullback Bobby Rhine. "It was a little chippy but that's good. Both teams really wanted to put it out there and they're in their preseason, so a little bit of that is probably fatigue -- and that always kind of gets the emotions going a little bit more when you're a little bit tired."
The Hoops will travel to Monterrey next Wednesday with a two-goal lead on aggregate going into the return leg of the inaugural Rio Grande Plate.
Scott Joiner is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
