FRISCO - Call it instinctive, inspirational, audacious or whatever you’d like. THAT pass from Kellyn Acosta is all the rage after Saturday’s 4-2 win at New England.
With FC Dallas leading by a goal late, it took all of a few seconds for the ball to find the back of the net to seal a third road win of the season. From the boot of Chris Seitz to the layoff by Tesho Akindele to the entry pass from Mauro Rosales and the delightful flick by Acosta, the fourth goal in New England may have been the prettiest overall team goal scored by Dallas so far this year.
“The play was very beautiful,” said head coach Oscar Pareja on Monday. “I was watching it this morning again and it requires a lot of inspiration and talent to do it. You have a tremendous challenge between two players, it was unbelievable. That one-two pass is unbelievable and great for [Kellyn] and his confidence.”
It wasn’t quite the first time we’ve seen a one-two pass from Acosta leading to a goal as he produced a similar play in a win over Portland in 2015, but this one was certainly the prettiest. In the goal celebration, Akindele made sure to point at Acosta giving him the props for the pass, though the fifth goal of the season for Akindele wasn’t too bad of a strike either.
“As a forward, you dream of a pass like that in a situation like that,” said Akindele. “The goalie’s stranded at that point and I’m at the PK spot so I can do whatever I want, all credit to Kellyn.”
For Acosta, the pass capped off one of his best performances of the season earning two assists in a match for the first time in his career while, due to an injury to Michael Barrios, being shuffled over to a right-sided midfield position in a four-man midfield after originally coming into the match in the center.
Acosta had a team-leading three key passes and led the squad in completed passing percentage. While a full-time move to right midfield is unlikely it is a new position for the Homegrown that Pareja liked very much.
“The way he worked for his team adapting to those two positions, first in three in the middle and then after that I put him in the four outside and I was surprised with Kellyn seriously,” said Pareja. “[Right midfield was] a position I love for him. I did like it a lot and found a lot of good things there.”
