Minnesota United and FC Dallas will meet for the second time in a 12-day span when the Loons travel to face the Toros on Saturday night in Frisco, Texas.
The two teams battled to a 1-1 draw in the first meeting on June 8 in Saint Paul, Minn., with Hassani Dotson scoring in the ninth minute to give Minnesota a quick 1-0 lead only to see Dallas tie it six minutes later on Liam Fraser’s first career MLS goal.
Although the teams will be quite familiar with each other with such a quick turnaround, the Toros (4-8-5, 17 points) will have a new look on the sideline. Assistant Peter Luccin took over as interim head coach when Dallas fired Nico Estevez after three seasons the day after the trip to Minnesota.
Luccin guided Dallas to a 2-0 victory over visiting St. Louis City in his debut on Saturday. Jesus Ferreira scored on a first-half penalty kick and defender Nkosi Tafari added the clincher in the 81st minute to give the Toros their first MLS victory since May 11.
“It’s a lot of emotion to win this first game,” Luccin said. “I need to be honest. I know it’s a win but we need to do better. We need to do better.”
Dallas won despite being outshot 21-10 and having just 42.7 percent of the possession. Goalkeeper Maarten Paes made eight saves, the sixth straight regular-season match that he’s made five saves or more.
“I look at all these stats and it’s not good enough,” Luccin said. “But I want to say something (about) the work that the boys put in out there. It’s a high level … (but) I want more. We play on Wednesday. We can be happy for 10 minutes but we are focused now for the Wednesday game.”
Minnesota (8-4-5, 29 points), which is fourth in the Western Conference, comes in off a 2-0 loss at Seattle on Saturday to fall to 0-8-0 all-time at Lumen Field.
The short-handed Loons played without starting goalie Dayne St. Clair and leading goal-scorer Tani Oluwaseyi, who are away on international duty with Canada, injured striker Teemu Pukki (knee) and a handful of other key regulars. Minnesota didn’t manage a shot on goal and had just five shot attempts while committing 13 fouls.
“It was real messy,” Loons head coach Eric Ramsay said. “It was very difficult circumstances for lots of reasons which are fairly obvious. We went into the game well short of what is our full contingent. I think the big thing for us now is that we’re very positive and very constructive.”
–Field Level Media
