FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – It was a two-pronged mission for Fabian Castilloon Saturday night, and by completing both he helped lead FC Dallas to a three big road points.
The plan was to have Castillo start out on the left side, as is normally the case, but soon thereafter manager Oscar Pareja was ready to unleash him up top and in the end the move paid off when he broke a 2-2 deadlock in the second half.
“In the first half we brought him in the left wing as his usual position, we wanted to create some damage there,” said the FC Dallas head coach. “But our plan for him was to spend most of the time up front. After 15 minutes we moved him up there and tried to create space for himself and for others and get him behind the central backs. In the second half it was even more as we left him by himself and we brought Tesho Akindele into the hole…Fabian just used that space that was created by [Akindele] and he came in with a very important goal.”
The strike came in the 70th minute as Castillo used his blazing speed to overcome New England center back Sambinha, who was making his first MLS start.
When the Revs defender misplayed a long pass over the top, Castillo swooped in and slotted his shot to the right.
“We knew that [the Revs] just bringing in two guys that were not currently playing [Sambinha and Chris Tierney] would give us some space in the back,” Pareja said of trying to take advantage of the Revolution’s back line, which also included the return of Tierney after a month out due to injury. “We used it well. We got in behind with the speed, we attacked the flanks especially and in the second half we put Fabian in between the central backs and one of those plays gave us a good result”
The goal gave Castillo three tallies on the year, all of which have been game-winners for FC Dallas, tying him with Sebastian Giovinco and Pedro Morales in that category.
