Sounders at FC Dallas: One Good Question

You wake up. You make coffee. You find your Sounders shirt. You get ready to watch the club take on FC Dallas. No, you aren’t stuck in some straight-to-streaming version of Groundhog Day. This is just the nature of the limited opponent schedule of pandemic soccer.

Tonight the Seattle Sounders face off against FC Dallas for the second time this month. The variety offered is two-fold. This match is on the road so you have to switch from bad screen to good screen rather than deal with Puget Sound traffic. Also, Seattle’s back on a hot streak and FCD is on a not streak.

Three Questions for the match two weeks ago asked about Justin Che, a key veteran, and Luchi’s road struggles. Che and the veterans are still important topics. Review them.

For Big D Soccer, Drew answers One Good Question.

SaH: Just two weeks ago these two teams met in a disappointing draw for Seattle. What will Dallas do to maintain that result or get a better one against a now surging Sounders team?

BDS: In a way, FC Dallas has to take a page out of the fictional Richmond AFC team from Ted Lasso and become a goldfish. I say that mostly from the recent loss to Sporting Kansas City over the weekend. The short turnaround here gives them the ability to move on quickly and not dwell in the defeat from Saturday, which is good considering how unlucky they were against a good SKC squad (they hit the crossbar or the post four or five times in one half!). The team has played well despite that result over the weekend and just need to continue to find ways to allow their attacking quartet to do what they’ve been doing well lately, as in creating chances from the wings, finding guys like Ricardo Pepi available in the penalty box and maintaining the edge in possession. The defense has also improved but will certainly need to move on quickly from the loss to SKC as head coach Luchi Gonzalez looks to figure out which starting center back duo makes the most sense here now that Matt Hedges and Jose Martinez are healthy again. Lastly, I would say they need to have a little more urgency about their play in this one since they’re at home and their next three will be back out on the road. The time for a playoff push really does begin now for this group and another home loss could sink that momentum that they’ve built over the last month.

Check out their preview at Big D Soccer.