FC Dallas Wins Their Fifth Game In A Row
By Curry Goff
Someone needs to pinch me. I think a fell asleep about a month ago and haven’t woken up yet.
…because FC Dallas has been in dream form over the past month. Winning five of their last five games and outscoring their opponents by a tally of 13-2 in that stretch, your hometown team has vaulted into first place in MLS and has shown no signs of slowing down.
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This stretch of games wasn’t supposed to go like this, at least not on paper. Coming off of a long road trip with little to no momentum, this team looked like it was in disarray. There was no consistent attacking power, the defense looked to be in shambles, and two relatively consistent players in Watson and Perez were leaving for international duty.
Not exactly the way you want to head into a stretch where three out of your next five games are against playoff teams (DC, Portland, and New England) and one of the others is a bitter, in-state rival down I-45.
Yet somehow, someway, FC Dallas has managed to pull off the improbable. Call it mid-season form. Call it luck. Whatever you call it, you have to give credit to a few exceptional performances from players that needed to step up if this was ever going to work.
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The first of those has to be the emergence of Kellyn Acosta. Dallas’ very own Homegrown talent has made a name for himself over the past several weeks and has come up big.
With his second MLS goal in FC Dallas’ 4-1 dismantling of Portland on Saturday night, Acosta further solidified his substantial impact on this 5 game winning streak. The little midfielder has become a bit of a staple on the team sheet for Oscar Pareja and probably will continue to be.
Honestly, outside of maybe Diaz, Castillo, and Ulloa, if recent form is any indication, Acosta is one of the first names I would be writing on my roster. He and Victor Ulloa have become like a beautiful pairing of fine cheese and French wine (at least that’s what I’m told) in the FC Dallas midfield. Iron sharpening iron. Peanut butter and jelly. You get the gist.
After that, you have to give a ton of credit to the wingbacks that Oscar Pareja has created out of thin air with Ryan Hollingshead and Atiba Harris. The two have been converted by Pareja into fullbacks with a pension for getting forward. They have been surprisingly good, both in attack and defense, which is a breath of fresh air.
You also can’t mention breakout performances without listing the name of Michael Barrios. The Colombian has struggled at times to make his mark on the team so far this season, but Saturday night’s performance, coupled with several strong starts in recent games, announced Barrios’ presence in a big, big way.
Now, with Diaz and Watson set to rejoin FC Dallas once they recover from the Gold Cup, FC Dallas is only going to get better. Lost in the mix of all his teammates performing well, David Texeira has underwhelmed, just like he has all season. There’s no denying that Perez, who had a decent showing for Panama in the Gold Cup, will make this team much more potent than it was with Texeria spearheading the attack.
A little competition, both with Perez/Texeira and Watson/Harris, will go a long way to making this team that much more difficult to beat. You have to think that teams like LA and KC and Seattle are looking up the Western Conference table and worrying about little ol’ Dallas. It’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it?