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Sports

Sporting hits the road to tangle with FCD

By Sports Network
Published | Updated

Frisco, TX (SportsNetwork.com) - FC Dallas eyes a second successive win to begin the season on Saturday when the team welcomes Sporting Kansas City to Toyota Stadium.

Oscar Pareja's second season in charge of Dallas got off to a winning start last weekend as Blas Perez scored a last-minute goal to lift FCD to a 1-0 win over the San Jose Earthquakes.

With Dallas locked in a 0-0 draw in stoppage time Moises Hernandez fired a shot toward goal and Perez reacted quickly to redirect the ball past goalkeeper David Bingham.

The result was certainly a good one for a Dallas side that made the postseason last year, and midfielder Tesho Akindele's post-match comments are definitely reflective of a team playing with confidence.

"I think it shows that we never give up," Akindele said of the fact that Dallas kept pushing for a winning goal. "I always felt like we were going to score the whole time. I felt that we were going to score a goal and we did. I think it's just a huge testament to our team and the kind of mentality that Oscar [Pareja] has put into us."

Sporting's opening match of the campaign saw the side battle Red Bull New York to a 1-1 draw despite playing the final 20 minutes of the contest with 10 men.

Ike Opara scored the opening goal for Sporting in the 50th minute, but his tally was canceled out by New York's Lloyd Sam four minutes later.

Defender Matt Besler picked up a second yellow card in the 70th minute, and Sporting had to hang on for a point despite playing down a man.

"I think at times we were really good. We broke a couple of times. We were very good going forward, but we were more like a one hit wonder," Sporting head coach Peter Vermes said when asked to assess his team's overall performance. "We didn't maybe possess the ball enough at times in the other team's half. The other thing is I think at times we gave up too many second balls in the middle of the midfield. I think as the game went on, we got a little better with it. We felt more comfortable."

Sporting was also breaking in a number of new faces against New York, including goalkeeper Luis Marin, midfielder Bernardo Anor, and attackers Krisztian Nemeth and Roger Espinoza.

Espinoza is back at Sporting after a two-year stint in England with Wigan, so Sporting may need a bit of time for all the new pieces to come together and jell before the club hits top gear.

Vermes lost central defender Aurelien Collin as a salary-cap casualty in the offseason, and he will now have to do without Besler on Saturday through suspension.