FRISCO - A late-game Open Cup exit in Kansas City, followed soon after by a large shutout defeat. FC Dallas has been here before, but they’re out to prove that 2018 will not be a repeat of 2017’s demise.
A year ago, Dallas rebounded from Open Cup defeat with a road win in Montreal, before a 4-0 loss at home to Vancouver the following week started a 10-match winless run that saw Oscar Pareja's side miss out on the playoffs for the first time in charge in Frisco.
After last week’s 3-0 loss on the road to the 10-man New York Red Bulls, the focus is about bouncing back, moving on and starting anew vs. Minnesota United FC on Friday night (7PM - TXA 21).
“[We need to] just come back out and prove on the field that it wasn’t how we wanted to perform,” Matt Hedges said. “Every team is going to have games where it doesn’t go right, but we have to show that it was a one-off thing.”
“This is such a long season, we’re professionals and we’ve been through this before,” defender Ryan Hollingshead added. “You can’t let one loss get to you, so we put that one behind us a while ago and we’re ready to move forward.”
Over the first 14 games of the season, Dallas had just one loss to their record and were in the midst of a four-game winning streak in league play. The 15th was admittedly a poor showing, but with a short week leading up to Friday’s match and Dallas set to open up a stretch of three games in nine days, it’s all about getting back on the right foot against a Minnesota side that has struggled through the opening half.
“They have a lot of dangerous players,” said Hedges, who will be without center back partner Reto Ziegler this weekend. “Quintero is a great player, so that’s a guy we need to be aware of. It’s just another game for us to go out there and impose our style.”
