New England Revolution beat FC Dallas 1-0, which was Dallas’ first loss of the season.
The only goal in the prime time Thursday night MLS game was in the 72nd minute as Khano Smith fired a ball from the left side of the box giving the Revs a 1-0 lead, which would be the final score. Smith received a pass from Kheli Dube and darted into the box eluding a Dallas defender and fired a shot past Dallas goalie Dario Sala.
Dallas was the last team in the MLS that had not lost a game this year. New England’s record now stands at 3-2-1 and Dallas is now 2-1-2. To make matters worse for Dallas is that they lost the game at home.
When asked after the game about his goal Smith said, “I beat (McCarty) and it actually touched his hand, but the referee let the play go on, so I was able to get in front of him and get to the ball. I was trying to go outside and he kept shoving me inside, so that’s when I got into the box and decided to have a shot with my right (foot).”
In the 85th minute is looked as if Dallas FC would be awarded a penalty kick after Dallas striker Arturo Alvarez went down in the penalty box after contact with Revs fullback Amaechi Igwe. But instead of awarding FC Dallas a penalty referee Alex Prus gave Alvarez a yellow card for taking a dive in the box. The yellow card was a surprise for Alvarez, who said about the incident, “(Prus) didn’t say anything to me. He just gave me a yellow after I got hit,” My quad is really hurting right now. It happens a lot of times, but it’s just very disappointing that I got the card. There was, for sure, contact.”
Andre Rocha had two chances to tie the game but missed from only 10 years out in the 87th minute and was just wide only seconds later.
New England head coach Steve Nicol said after the game, “We knew we had to keep it tight because they do throw men forward. So it was important that we didn’t leave any holes. The objective was to come here and be solid. We wanted to find our feet in the game and get forward. I think we did that.”
The first half saw very few scoring opportunities for both teams, as FC Dallas only had 1 shot on goal, while New England had 3. In the second half both teams had a few chances to score but Smith’s goal was the only ball that found the twine.
FC Dallas head coach Steve Morrow said about the game, “We needed to get the ball in quicker at times, especially in the first half. We got a lot of good spots in the last third of the field and should have had a goal on a cross into the box. We talked about it at halftime, and I think we did better in the second half. We’ve had a good start (but) we’re disappointed to give up our unbeaten run here at home.”
