MLS: FC Dallas 3-1 Sporting Kansas
Sporting Kansas City suffered their first loss of 2015 in a 3-1 defeat at FC Dallas on Saturday. Panama international Blas Perez scored twice for the home side at Toyota Stadium, giving him eight goals in his last eight regular season games, while Roger Espinoza struck for Sporting Kansas City’s only tally.
FC Dallas head coach Oscar Pareja
Talk about Blas Perez’s performance…
Earlier this week I saw him making a comment in front of his teammates saying “I feel younger and younger. Today he showed it. The way he emptied himself on the field… He performed with such professionalism. He is a good example for us and the game rewarded him for his hard work. He’s doing the right thing during the week to get ready for the games. Today was just another day for him where the ball bounced his way just because he’s doing the right things in preparation.
On the team’s ability to counterattack after Mauro Diaz came out of the match…
You need to remember that Mauro has not played much in the past year. We’re still being patient with him. We are giving him the opportunity to catch up with the speed of the game. We need him. We can play with him and we can play without him, but it’s better for the team when we are with him. Last year, we adapted to him being out of the lineup. It made us stronger. When Mauro is on the field we look very dangerous with the ball on his foot in the middle. Without him we are stronger on the counter attack.
Sporting Kansas City Manager Peter Vermes
On the second FC Dallas goal…
He (Perez) was offsides, and so were three other guys. It’s not a good call. It’s unfortunate because what it does is changes everything about the game from that point. I always say that all situations within a game have a cause and effect as the game goes on, and unfortunately this one did. My big thing about it is we, as coaches, are working with our team on certain situations within games. That was a set piece. The ball got played back to Michel, our guys stepped out like we work on and they were in a good line, they stepped out the right way and they had the guys offsides. Exactly what we work on, and to not get rewarded for that is the frustrating thing because I have to go back out and try to figure out how to get these guys to believe in doing that for the next time because they don’t trust the referee, and that’s a little bit of a difficult situation.
On the absence of Matt Besler…
I’m very pleased with the performance of my team tonight. Although we got three goals scored against us, I thought we played very well. I thought we were on the front foot. I thought we put them under a lot of pressure. I think most of their games was they played a lot of long balls down the field, they weren’t playing their normal game because of the way that we were aggressive on the defensive side, and we created a lot of chances within their box and had a lot of opportunities. That part’s good. A little disappointed a few times we maybe gave up possession, very easy possession and also in critical areas, but outside of that, performance, work ethic, intelligent play, it was very good.
On defender Amadou Dia…
Every game the kid gets a little bit better. He made a mistake on the first goal, but that’s going to happen. He’s got a lot of potential and a lot of talent and he’s got a good future ahead of him for sure.
