2010 Apr 22 2010 Apr 22
Pizza Hut Park, Frisco, TX
Goals:
27' DAL: Jeff Cunningham (PK)
38' SEA: Steve Zakuani (Osvaldo Alonso)
55' SEA: Fredy Montero
90' DAL: Jeff Cunningham (PK)
Dallas: Dario Sala; Jair Benitez (Brek Shea 73'), Ugo Ihemelu, George John, Zach Loyd (Jason Yeisley 81'); Heath Pearce, Daniel Hernandez, Dax McCarty (Eric Avila 64'), David Ferreira, Atiba Harris; Jeff Cunningham. Substitutes not used: Kevin Hartman, Bruno Guarda, Anthony Wallace, Eric Alexander.
Seattle: Kasey Keller (Terry Boss 46'); Leo Gonzalez, Tyrone Marshall, Jhon Kennedy Hurtado, James Riley; Steve Zakuani, Osvaldo Alonso, Brad Evans, David Estrada (Pat Noonan 69'); Roger Levesque, Fredy Montero (Freddie Ljungberg 78'). Substitutes not used: Tyson Wahl, Patrick Ianni, Nathan Sturgis, Peter Vagenas.
Match report from Ron Stickney:
The Seattle Sounders FC played their second road match of the year much the way they played the first. They had a 2-1 lead heading into added time, and a goal conceded in the last minute of added time to settle for a draw. Both Dallas goals were penalty kicks by Jeff Cunningham, and the last one was undeserved. In between the PKs were fine Seattle goals from Steve Zakuani and Fredy Montero.
Rookie David Estrada had his first start, playing at right midfield. He showed a lot of hustle at times, but too often was stripped of the ball when perhaps holding it too long. He needs to pass quicker or hold stronger.
First Half
The opening 25 minutes were characterized mostly by both sides giving the ball away often. Seattle's Osvaldo Alonso did manage the first shot, from the free kick after the first foul of the match, and he missed yards wide from a distance. Midway in the half Dallas had two shots in succession blocked in front of goal on a free kick play, and a minute later Heath Pearce fired a rocket just wide of the near post.
27' DAL: Cunningham (PK). The usually reliable Jhon Kennedy Hurtado made a very poor decision when he failed to clear a ball in the area, instead shielding it for Kasey Keller. Cunningham got to it first, then Keller collided with Cunningham, yielding a penalty kick. Cunningham put the shot perfectly to the lower left corner, beating Keller's outstretched hand. 1-0 Dallas.
Ten minutes later Cunningham had a nice chance from a ball served to the far post, but he failed to head it on target when he had a good chance to.
38' SEA: Zakuani (Alonso). Hurtado might have been called for a foul that won the ball, but he wasn't. From his own half, Alonso sent a long pass to Zakuani open on the left side. Zakuani beat Zach Loyd and George John into the penalty area, then beat goalkeeper Dario Sala with a shot inside the far post. 1-1.
Late in the half Dallas left back Jair Benitez sent a nice strike through traffic from 15 yards but missed a yard wide of the far post.
Second Half
Seattle goalkeeper Terry Boss came on for Keller at intermission, as Keller was reported to have vision problems resulting from the collision that caused the penalty kick. Seattle's defense was outstanding in the second half.
In just the second minute of the second half Zakuani turned the corner on the left and sent a nice cross on the bounce to Roger Levesque who was wide open on a run to the center of the 6-yard line. Levesque ought to have finished it but instead he missed another golden chance, shooting wide of the target. Montero was next to miss a golden opportunity, sprung wide open on the right with a pass from Zakuani. With Sala caught in no man's land out near the 18-yard line, Montero's attempt with a chip shot was weak and easily within reach of Sala overhead.
55' SEA: Montero. After drawing a foul, Montero atoned for his recent miss by bending a 40-yard free kick nicely around the wall and into the top near corner. It seemed reachable, but Sala did not get there in time. 2-1 Seattle.
The first save of the match did not come until the 74th minute, when David Ferreira's long cross to the far post was headed from 3 yards by Atiba Harris and Boss saved with a chest block.
At 87' Freddie Ljungberg, who had come on as a substitute for Montero, earned a shot and fired a hard, low ball at the near corner. Sala gave up a little rebound, but quickly picked it up.
90' DAL: Cunningham (PK). In the 3rd minute of added time Dallas got a gift from referee Terry Vaughn. Just inside the center of the 18-yard line Hurtado and Leo Gonzalez stood substitute Jason Yeisley up and he lost the ball, but Yeisly fell forward between the defenders and from well back of the play Vaught awarded a penalty kick. Hurtado and Gonzalez were just standing there blocking the path to goal. Cunningham shot again to the left side while Boss guessed the other way. 2-2.
Statistics:
DAL SEA
Shots: 14 6
Saves: 2 1
Corners: 5 1
Fouls: 16 19
Offsides: 2 3
Misconduct:
7' DAL: John cautioned for a tactical foul on Levesque
21' SEA: Marshall cautioned undeservedly
44' SEA: Montero cautioned for sliding under Hernandez from behind
85' DAL: Ferreira cautioned undeservedly
Referees: Terry Vaughn; Sean Hurd, Jason Cullum; Alejandro Mariscal
Attendance: 8,512
Postmatch Quotes
Seattle Sounders FC
Sigi Schmid - Head Coach
On thoughts on the PK decision and the end of the game: "Bad call...It's just a bad call. I think there were a couple calls at the end of the game. When you're late in the game and you're leading the game 2-1 and a guy gets fouled on your team, you don't want an advantage at that point. And he plays an advantage and we turn the ball over two seconds later. That's just not understanding what's going on in the game. And at the end of the game like that, when I've got players from the team that got the penalty saying to me it wasn't a PK, I got to believe it's a bad call. I haven't seen the replay, but everybody who has seen the replay and talked to me about it said it was a bad call."
On how the disappointment compares to Salt Lake game: "It's a little more disappointing because the Salt Lake game we kind sort of gave away ourselves by not marking well on a corner. This one sort of got taken away from us. We also had a couple of opportunities to score a third goal. We had a good opportunity early in the first half by Roger. We had another good opportunity in the second half before we got Montero's goal, so we could've put the chances away. Noonan ends up pulling his hamstring a little bit, so we couldn't get pressure on the service anymore. Which was one of the things we wanted to do is make sure that Hernandez and those players just couldn't serve the ball into our box. But at the end of the day, you've got an empty feeling in your stomach. You feel basically like you went to Christmas and the toy you expected to get wasn't under the tree. Somebody stole it. And it got stolen away from us today."
On referee Terry Vaughn: "It's not that we have a bad relationship. I've been thrown out twice in this league, both times by Terry. But I don't think we have a bad relationship, I just think he had an off game. Everybody has an off day, he had an off day."
On having another game in two days to prepare for: "Guys are disappointed, but we know we came in and we've played two games on the road and could've walked away with six points on those two road games. But giving up late goals each time and we're walking away with two. But we know we're a good road team. We know we can play on the road. They're a team that goes forward. We dodged a few bullets. We had to replace our goalkeeper at halftime, which is not something you expect to do and we were still there. If they don't get kicks from the penalty spot they don't get any goals tonight."
On Kasey Keller's health: "He's OK. On the penalty kick he got kneed in the head on that play."
Is he going to be OK?: "When you get kneed in the head...he had blurred vision a little bit. I like to err on the side of caution."
On Montero's goal: "It was a good goal. He hit a good free kick. I think Sala was expecting him to cross it and not necessarily to shoot it. I think he got caught over a little bit and Montero hit it well."
On Zakuani's goal: "Yeah, it was a good goal. He came in for a good part of that first half we weren't getting him into the game enough. We were saying 'get Zakuani into the game' and we finally got him in the game and he broke in behind Loyd, broke in and slotted the ball into the corner. So it was a good goal."
On choices for new lineup and how they played: "We're playing two games in 72 hours so we've got to keep some people rested. Unfortunately now with Noonan, who we expected to start in the Toronto game. Now we're not sure as to what it is. I thought Estrada, for his first game out, I thought he did well. Acquitted himself well and battled and did the things he could do."
On Terry Boss' performance: "I thought Boss did all right. He didn't get beat except for the PK. The one stop he made it was offsides but he came up good with a good stop there. He obviously looked confident and calm, which is important."
Tyrone Marshall
Did you get an explanation on the late PK call?: "I don't think he explained anything to us. I was trying to get an explanation. I was trying to go up and talk to the referee and he said to me, 'Get away. Get away.' So I went away. Hopefully he can go back and look at the replay and get judged on the play. It was a questionable call. 93rd minute and the guy's trying to go through two defenders and he jumped in the air. If he's going to make that call I think he should be at a good angle to make the call. When I looked back, he was looking to see what was going on. So, for me, you can't make a call like that. That's just me. But it happened, he made the call and they got the penalty kick."
Did you see where the ref was?: "When I looked, he was behind, on top of the 18 like probably above the arc between a couple of guys. Because I turned around and he was looking to see what was going on. I don't think he had a clear view, but that's just my opinion. We'll see. We'll look at the replay tomorrow, later on and see what happened. It was a tough, tough way to give away two points. It was the second game on the road that we've given away two points (at the end). So that's four points we've given away in two games. It's a tough one. We battled. We deserved more than what we got tonight. We have to brush this one off quick because we have another tough game in Toronto come Sunday. The quicker we get this out of our system and move on, the better it is for us."
How does this compare to Salt Lake?: "Every week it's going to be a different drama. This one is definitely tough, but Salt Lake was tough as well. This one we know it was a call that I don't know should have been made. There's nothing we can do. We just have to move on and hope it doesn't happen again."
On turning around quick for Toronto game: "We've got to turn around real quick and get ready for Toronto because they're going to be fired up and coming out with all the energy and ready to go on Sunday."
Terry Boss
Postgame thoughts): "I'm just disappointed we lost - or tied. I feels like a loss. But it's a tie. It hurts a lot."
On his performance: "I think there are always things you can look back and wish you did better. It's a learning experience every time. Obviously there are things that I take away that I did well, other things I could have done better and move on from there and keep working."
On disappointment again on the road: "We all hate losing. I think every professional athlete hates losing. Regardless of how it happens. Even if it's a tie, we lost two points when we could have had three."
Steve Zakuani
On comparing to Salt Lake: "I don't think it's the same feeling as Salt Lake. Salt Lake it was kind of our own fault, we as a team didn't finish it off like we should've. Tonight our effort was fantastic. It wasn't our best performance at all, but we gave such a strong effort, to see the guys work so hard for 94 minutes and then gave away that kind of call, I don't know. There's no feeling like it."
On missing chances in second half: "You always have. You always have. And if we do that, maybe the game's killed. At the same time, you won't finish every single chance. The thing about this league, is when you go away from home, it's tough to always play well. We didn't play too well, but we scored two on the road again. We had the lead up until the 94th minute. We defended well. Fought really hard. They never really had any clear-cut chances. To tie the game on that, that really hurts. That hurts a lot."
On having to rebound quick for Toronto: "I think it's a good thing. Because if we had a week off, maybe we'd get down on ourselves. Now we can go out Sunday and get three points. I think we said before the roadtrip, if we can get four points in two games, we'd have taken it. So we have to make sure we get three points at Toronto. And you saw tonight that we're deep. We had a lot of new guys playing, Boss came in, Estrada came in and we didn't drop. Hopefully on Sunday we'll get three points."
On your goal: "I think I was having a quiet first half, which I wasn't happy about. But I kept saying to myself that I'll get a chance. The defender went up, so I cheated. Ozzie won the ball and we do that in training all the time, where he plays me in. Then 1-v-1, staying composed. Last year I might have tried to cross that early, but not this year I said, 'No way, I got to go on goal.' Once I scored it, it was a good feeling obviously. Last year, if I had a bad start that would've been it. This year I still know I can make a difference. It was a good goal. I worked a lot on that in training and it was good to see come through."
On Boss' performance: "He did well. He made two good saves. He gave us a lot of confidence when he came out on some crosses. So that was good. I think Boss has been working with Kasey for a long time, so we weren't worried. Whoever comes in, truly, we feel like our level stays the same. I think that's really good and it shows that the coach has trust in the players. And so I said whoever plays on Sunday, let's go get three points. If we keep scoring two goals on the road, we won't lose many games."
FC Dallas
Schellas Hyndman - Head Coach
On the tie: "It's a good tie because you're losing the game and you're waiting around for something to happen, you're hoping to put the ball in the goal. They're delaying. They're coming away with three points on the road. So for us to come back I think you look at the positive side, it's a point. We haven't been beaten at home in the last eleven games. On the positive side it shows a lot of character and attitude on our team to keep fighting so I think it's a good point."
On rookie Jason Yeisley drawing the PK call in stoppage time: "We were just trying to get a goal, create something. He went through and there were enough bodies around him that we were able to get the call."
In still looking for first win in 2010: "I think we're creating a lot of opportunities. I think we just have to put some of those opportunities away. I think something we're going to concern ourselves with is how to protect a lead. We're very offensive minded. We've got to be a little bit smarter and protect it a little bit."
Jeff Cunningham
On his two PK goals: "The first one I drew and I felt like I should take it. The second one it took a lot of courage to step up and take that and I'm happy we gained a point from the game. I waited until the last second to make a decision and I'm happy I did. Keller is a big presence in the goal and he makes it a thinking game. The second one, I didn't know where it was going and I'm grateful I made the kick. I find a way to create chances and goal scoring opportunities. One week you miss two chances, the next you score."
Jason Yeisley
On PK at end of game: "Whether I get one minute or twenty, my job as a sub is to come in and make it happen, help the team salvage the goal. The ball was bouncing around and I settled down on the tackle and the ball got through and I got a PK out of it. We had ten minutes when I got in. I was focusing as hard as I could to make it happen."
