Heading into the most important pair of games on the season, FC Dallas is still waiting to find out who they play in just under four days.
Dallas earned a bye past the Knockout Round and while the rest is nice, the team won’t know until Thursday night where they are traveling to on Friday for their first taste of the playoffs on Sunday.
“In a year full of challenges, that’s [just] one more,” Pareja said. “The experience keeps telling you that you have to be prepared for many things that are not perfect, so we have to adapt to it. We have already played against these guys [multiple] times already, so it is nothing new.”
With the Sounders knocking off the defending-champion LA Galaxy on Wednesday, the field of potential Dallas opponents was narrowed to two – Seattle and Sporting KC. They’ll have to wait until almost midnight on Thursday to narrow that field to one.
“We don’t even know who we play on Sunday and won’t until late Thursday night. It’s a bit strange,” Atiba Harris said of the unique situation. “[Training is] more about ourselves – organization and winning our duels – and so we’re going to focus on that until we know our opponent is and then we can focus more on them.”
Off the field, however, there is no waiting. The video room is getting extra use this week - studying the movements and tendencies of several teams as opposed to one.
“The back line is watching [video on] all the forwards and getting familiar with them,” Loyd said. “The biggest thing is we’re trying to get familiar with their movements, what they like to do off the ball, stuff like that so when we do find out or we get in the game we’re familiar with it and we can capitalize on it.”
No matter the opponent, whoever Dallas plays on Sunday will be playing their third game in eight days while FCD has enjoyed the customary week between games. In Pareja’s mind though, he’s not worried about that.
“I don’t want to think about if somebody has 70 hours of rest or if somebody played or didn’t play,” Pareja said. “What I know is we’re going to have a team prepared – we have to have a team prepared for Sunday and we’re going to have a team in there.”
