Disappointment in Dallas. FC Dallas let’s a win slip away in the 92nd minute.

The weather in the Dallas, Texas area has been incredibly volatile over the month of March. Of course, come April 1st, the weather is perfect. Blue skies, a slight wind, and the temperature in the mid to low 70’s. It’s hard to beat that. Saturday night, FC Dallas faced off against the Portland Timbers as Apollo Media does some soccer content.

In the past few weeks, Apollo has covered the Houston Dynamo and Dash, and now I’m in Dallas covering the team up north. Who knows, if you want to cover another team down south, Austin FC, and hang out with Matthew McConaughey, reach out to us and let’s make it happen. 2023 is the Apollo MLS takeover year apparently.

Saturday night’s match was my first ever MLS game. I attended the USWNT victory tour in Birmingham, Alabama in 2015 after they had dominated the World Cup. I’ve also been to an alumni game between Real Madrid and Chelsea, which featured a bunch of has-beens that are in their mid to upper 40’s. So between those two exhibitions, you could consider this my first ever professional soccer game (it feels insincere to call it football, so I’m gonna stick to soccer).

I’m not going to sit here and give you hard hitting analysis on Saturday night’s match, but I did observe some things on the pitch. FC Dallas has some really good players. Jesús Ferreira was the first name and player I recognized as the match got underway. He seemed to be the best player on the field for both teams as he typically always had a first step on the defense.

He also apparently has a mean kick to the shin when he wants to pull that one out of his bag of tricks. One major thing I learned while addictively watching the World Cup in November is that soccer players LOVE to flop. They absolutely adore flopping. Fogaca for Portland was certainly enjoying the flop on that instance early in the game.

The first half concluded with the scored tied at zero. Nil-nil if you will. There were plenty of chances for both squads, but FC Dallas owned a majority of possession and had more shots on goal throughout the match.

In the second half, things started to heat up even more. Alan Velasco of FC Dallas was putting the pressure on the Timbers’ goalkeeper on numerous occasions. He ultimately came up empty on most chances due to slight deflections off a defender, or fingertip saves from Portland.

Dallas brought in Facundo Quignon in the 64th minute, and it was right to work for the subs as they got in the game. Corner after corner. Chance after chance. The boys in red were buzzing right around the net ready to pounce on their opportunities.

They kept fighting for their chances and eventually Facu put one in the back of the net after what seemed like what should have been Dallas’ third or fourth goal in the last 10 minutes.

Obviously, with 15+ minutes left in the match Dallas couldn’t go on autopilot. Portland had these streaky moments where they would get a three on one or four on one opportunity and would end up missing the net entirely. Until the 92nd minute, it appeared that Dallas would come away with a win and the maximum amount of points.

There were four minutes of extra time, and it appeared that the game was essentially over. Out of no where, and I mean that literally, I didn’t see it coming at all, the Timbers tied the game up with just under two minutes left to play. The win and maximum points in the standings were out the window, and there was disappointment in Dallas. FC Dallas let a win slip away in the 92nd minute, but this weekend they’ll be in Miami to face off with Inter Miami CF.