By DAN KARELL
It may have been to the thin air in the mountains of Denver, or perhaps a widening of a hole in the ozone layer, but during a ten minute span at Dicks Sporting Good Park, it was raining goals.
Colorado Rapids forward Atiba Harris and FC Dallas front man Blas Perez each scored a brace between the 56th and 66th minutes of the match as the Rapids drew with F.C. Dallas, 2-2, in front of 17,551 fans on Saturday night in Commerce City, Colorado.
After a scoreless first half where the only action had been an F.C. Dallas goal called back by the linesman, the second half heated up when Harris turned in a long throw-in from teammate Marvell Wynne to take a 1-0 lead. It wouldn’t last long though, as Perez would equalize in the 61st minute past a diving Rapids goalkeeper Clint Irwin, taking advantage of a poor clearance from none other than Harris himself.
Harris made up for the mistake three minutes later, taking a header in the box and side-footing home past the on-rushing F.C. Dallas goalkeeper Raul Fernandez. But the defensive errors continued to haunt the hosts, allowing Perez time and space at the top of the box in the 66th minute, giving the Panamanian an opportunity to rifle one past Irwin to tie the score.
Neither side could break the deadlock as the teams settled for a draw. The result keeps F.C. Dallas on top of the Western Conference, while leaving the Rapids in fifth place.
Here are the match highlights:
Not to take any credit away from FCD for getting this result on the road — the Rapids should have been more focused and shut it down for full points — but the play on the field last night was more evidence that Dallas just isn’t as good as their record & points indicate…
Hard to get anything going when Thomas was freight train wrecking FCD player he could. Guy should have been on a yellow before the half.
Too bad there isn’t more clear video of the first goal that was taken away, it’s pretty suspect to think the ball was wholly out. I’d concede the take away more easily had it been called for handball than being out.
The first Col goal it could be argued Hedges was being fouled, not like him to be at arms length and falling away from the ball as it’s coming in the box…
To your point directly – many of the FCD games leave unanswered questions afterwards. Bigdsoccer.com is the SBN blog for FCD and each week we continue to ask ourselves, “are we really this good”? The answer thus far has to be unequivocally, “yep we’re pretty good – so far”.