This season’s matchup between FC Dallas and the Philadelphia Union will be the first for Dallas on the road this season. Their season so far has been played at home, with the opener in Week 1 against the San Jose Earthquakes, and in Week 2 their opponent being Sporting Kansas City. FC Dallas has also only played their Western Conference opponents so far, making Friday night’s matchup the first matchup for Dallas against a team in the opposite conference.
The referee assignments have been given already and the referee for Friday’s match will be Jose Carlos Rivero. Friday’s match will also be the one to begin Week 3 of the 2015 season, and with there being controversy in the refereeing of the last two Union matches, it will be an interesting game to watch for sure. Also complicating things for this matchup is the weather, as it is going to snow and then change to rain around game time at PPL Park. Two weeks into the season, FC Dallas is the only team to still have the maximum points available to them at this point.
Between Dallas and the Union, there have been seven all-time meetings with FC Dallas having won three, and four draws have also been played. However, with the offseason additions and changes that the Union made this offseason, they seem to be becoming more offensive minded. Helping with this, new striker Fernando Aristeguieta opened his own goal scoring account as well as the Union’s scoring for this season last week by scoring twice. He has stepped in to fill in as the goal scoring striker that the Union has been lacking for years.
Last season, Conor Casey had a period of time where it seemed like he was scoring like crazy, and also new addition (at that point) Andrew Wenger was scoring. However, it was still not enough of a launch into the postseason and playoff contention after Head Coach Jim Curtin took over. This season, it seems that situation will be different. During the offseason, along with the Union’s additions and changes, Dallas has made their own additions and changes. Some of those include GK Dan Kennedy who Dallas chose in the dispersal draft of Chivas USA players and Atiba Harris who was available via the Re-Entry draft.
With a lot of changes on both sides of the ball, as well as the controversial refereeing in the first two weeks’ worth of matches, will FC Dallas be able to add to their points total from the beginning of the season so far, or will the Philadelphia Union finally be able to get a deserving win in front of their home crowd after not being able to deliver in the opener?