FRISCO, Texas – With the game tied and Seattle fading in the Texas heat, it looked as if FC Dallas would find a game-winner to keep their playoff hopes alive. However, time ran out before they could find the goal. And with that, time may have run out on their playoff push as Dallas disappointingly drew 1-1 with Seattle.
Adding insult to injury for a Dallas side that has two weeks to prepare for a must-win game here at FC Dallas Stadium against Vancouver, FCD led by an almost two to one margin in every major statistic including 24 attempts on goal to 11 for Seattle. The stat that counts the most, however, remained tied.
“Any time you get 24 attempts [on goal] you hope to get more than one goal,” head coach Schellas Hyndman said after the game. “At the same time, we’re in desperate mode trying to get three points, and tonight, I said to the players, ‘It can a cruel game sometimes.’”
OPTA Chalkboard: FC Dallas can't finish chances
It’s impossible to fault Sunday’s effort by FC Dallas, who became just the second team to take a point from a Sounders squad that was previously 12-0-1 when allowing the first goal. The attack was certainly much more dangerous for a side that remarkably had David Ferreira and Blas Pérez together in the starting lineup for the first time this season.
Pérez had four shots on goal in the match including two point-blank chances on Sounders goalkeeper Michael Gspurning, but the Dallas forward was unable to find the killer touch to break the deadlock.
“We had a lot of opportunities, but we couldn’t finish them,” Pérez said through a translator. “We didn’t have the last touch right. I had two opportunities that I’m usually able to capitalize on. I know that if I was 100 percent physically, those would be goals that I score.”
In total, Dallas had 12 attempts on goal in the last 25 minutes of the game, more than Seattle had all evening, but a 13-game winless streak earlier in the season means that draws for FCD feel like losses at this point.
“At any level anywhere in the world, when you don’t finish your chances, you know it always comes and bites you,” midfielder Andrew Jacobson said after the game. “I thought we definitely did enough and pushed hard to win the game, but it wasn’t meant to be.”
