FRISCO - Oscar Pareja wasn’t beating around the bush after FC Dallas’ 2-2 draw with Portland on Saturday night.
Flat out, he said he team had a bad first half. What changed the tide of the game and allowed Dallas to fight back for a point, was a shift to the new normal - a 4-4-2 formation.
“I think we did not play well in the first half especially,” Pareja said. “We earned a point that we deserved because of what we did in the second half. In the first half, we deserved to lose the game. We did not have control, Portland didn’t have control, but they took advantage of their set plays…That brought us bad energy in that part of the half and the game started getting out of control.”
For the second straight match, Pareja sent out his traditional 4-2-3-1 with Tesho Akindele, Javier Morales and Roland Lamah working the offensive midfield with Maxi Urruti as the lone target up top. After a frustrating opening 45 minutes that saw his club not even produce a shot on goal, he traded out Morales for Michael Barrios in the 54th minute. Tesho moved up top alongside Urruti with Barrios and Lamah along the flanks and the chances followed almost immediately.
“I think we woke up,” Kellyn Acosta said after the match. The midfielder sent a blistering shot on goal saved only by a diving Jeff Attinella for FCD’s first real chance of the night. “Oscar came in at halftime and really got into us. We were flat and weren’t really keeping the ball - we just weren’t ourselves. In the second half we pressed and had that inner belief that we were going to win the game and I think it paid dividends to get the result.”
Dallas would need just seven minutes under their new look to level the match with Urruti putting forth an individual effort against his former club to send an Acosta-forced turnover into the upper left corner of goal.
His celebration - running into the awaiting arms of his new head coach - said it all about what the goal meant to him.
"He opened the doors for me for this club, it was a difficult time when I left Portland. He bet on me, talked and brought me here, so that’s why I celebrate for him," Urruti said. "I was there for two and a half years and I have great affection with the people, but I have to defend this team now, like I said before they opened the doors for me. I was able to score a good goal and now I will celebrate it with family and know that we still have a lot in front of us."
“I played the game for 20 years. I know how important it is for a player playing against a team that he has played for before,” Pareja said. “I know during the week he was hoping and he was aiming for a goal, so I was just carrying the same feeling with him.”