After having snuck in to the playoffs as the five seed on the season's penultimate day, the Vancouver Whitecaps will travel to FC Dallas for a one game, winner-take-all matchup in the Wild-Card round of the 2014 MLS Cup Playoffs. Vancouver beat out Portland by only one point for fifth, needing a late winner from defender Kendall Waston to seal their spot in the playoffs.
Meanwhile, Dallas enter the postseason on a different note. They were beaten last week by that same desperate Portland side, and had two goals that looked good ruled offside and then out of bounds respectively. Quite frankly, they're mad. Had they won last Saturday, they would have finished in third place, avoiding the play-in game altogether. Now, they must regroup from that tough psychological loss and prepare for this Vancouver team.
FC Dallas and in particular manager Oscar Pareja are no strangers to the MLS Cup Playoffs, but have not been there since hosting and losing at this stage in 2011. Before that, they reached the final and lost in 2010. Although they have never won MLS Cup, they won the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup in 1997 and were the 2006 winners of the Supporter's Shield. This is their 13th playoff appearance.
In only their fourth season in MLS, the Vancouver Whitecaps will be making their second playoff appearance after making it to the knockout stages where they went out 2-1 to the LA Galaxy. In their history, Vancouver was NASL champions in 1979, when they knocked out the New York Cosmos and the Tampa Bay Rowdies en route to the title. Upon their return to Vancouver, as many as 100,000 fans greeted them.
Match Facts
These two have met three times this year, and have split as each team accrued four points.
July 27th
Vancouver Whitecaps 2 FC Dallas 2
September 13th
FC Dallas 2 Vancouver Whitecaps 0
October 3rd
Vancouver Whitecaps 2 FC Dallas 0
Recent Form (last five, in order of least to most recent)
FC Dallas: W L W W L
Vancouver Whitecaps: W W W D W
Top Scorers
FC Dallas
Blaz Perez 11
Fabian Castillo 10
Michel 8
Vancouver Whitecaps
Pedro Morales 10
Darron Mattocks 6
Erik Hurtado 5
Projected Starting XI's
FC Dallas: Seitz, Watson, Acosta, Hedges, Loyd, Escobar, Castillo, Michel, Ulloa, Akindele, Perez
Vancouver Whitecaps: Ousted, O'Brien, Harvey, Waston, Adekugbe, Laba, Rosales, Morales, Teibert, Mattocks, Fernandez
Team News
FC Dallas: Full Strength
Vancouver Whitecaps: Steven Beitashour (Out-Hamstring)
Prediction: FC Dallas 2, Vancouver Whitecaps 1
While the 'Caps enter this one in far better form, the danger that is posed by Dallas through Tesho Akindele, Fabian Castillo and Blaz Perez on the counter attack will prove too much.