FC Dallas played their second friendly of the Argentina trip on Thursday morning, a 1-1 draw to River Plate. Here's what head coach Oscar Pareja had to say on the match:
General thoughts on the match...
Another good exercise. A very demanding 45 minutes for each group. The quality of playing with River, the opponent, was incredible. It just helps us with the purpose to get more volume in minutes, but minutes that had a lot of value because of the quality of play, so we’re very pleased and blessed to have this opportunity.
On if he expected to see an Adonijah Reid goal assisted by Jesus Ferreira today…
That’s the purpose with these young men and it sends us a good message. They are telling us that they can do it. They are telling us they have the talent and we just have to open the door for them. I’m very happy and pleased to see these kids playing at that high level.
On the play from Jacori Hayes and how he’s pushing Kellyn Acosta…
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful to see Jacori doing that job. This is another kid who is showing us a lot of stuff.
On Atiba Harris’ quick transition to the center back role…
I’m going to tell you something in Atiba – you can play Atiba anywhere because there you have a player that you can trust. He’s adapting very well to the position.
On Javier Morales seeing minutes with FCD at the end of the match…
With Morales, we’re trying to get some more minutes also. We are being more sharp with him and trying to get him fit first, and then the minutes will come. We’re trying to strengthen some of the aspects of his body that we need to, so we’re getting a good and kind of different treatment with him, but today’s minutes are valuable.
On Morales adding and leading the team in his short appearance…
It’s a great asset for us to have his experience, to have his quality, his touch, his matureness, his professionalism – and at the same time we can still use that quality of his game.