FRISCO - FC Dallas heads to Los Angeles this weekend with one thing on their mind: bouncing back.
After suffering their first loss of 2018 last weekend and giving up in one game the same number of goals they had allowed in the previous six, Dallas isn’t panicking with a high-powered LAFC offense on the docket this weekend.
“To say the truth, last game in New York we were not on our level,” defender Reto Ziegler said this week. “I wasn’t happy with my performance and without the penalty it was a tied game. Our confidence is still up but we have to show another mentality against LA.”
“It’s just one game, we made mistakes but you know everyone is going to make mistakes at some point during the season,” the other man in the middle, Matt Hedges said. “We just need to keep moving forward and you know I think the couple games before that I thought we were very good.”
The first-year team in California will prove a difficult challenge on Saturday. Through seven games, LAFC has five wins while scoring 17 goals. The club already boasts two of the top attacking threats in the league, with Carlos Vela and Diego Rossi combining for nine goals and seven assists, and they added another dangerous piece to their roster just days ago - acquiring Dallas-native Lee Nguyen from New England.
“First [we have to] make sure that our character and our energy is there,” head coach Oscar Pareja said. “The discipline that this team has shown, especially in the last games that we have been away we were playing with a lot of energy, so the boys are doing a good job in that part and not being very unstable in our feelings and emotions. We’ve got to just stay steady knowing that it’s a long league and it’s a long journey here.”
