FC Dallas visits Atlanta United in Major League Soccer action at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Wednesday night.
Dallas (5-4-2, 19 points) enters the contest on a three-match winning streak which includes a 3-2 victory at Sporting Kansas City Sept. 19. Ryan Hollingshead’s goal in the 87th minute proved to be the game-winner for Dallas which also had Franco Jara notch two first-half goals.
“We were hungry to get a third (win) in a row and gain momentum,” Dallas manager Luchi Gonzalez said. “Our guys didn’t give up, believed we could still push the game and exposed space behind for the game-winner. I’m proud of them but we have to re-patch the wounds, regenerate and be ready for another game. That’s the type of schedule we have right now.”
Dallas is third in the Western Conference standings, two points behind the first-place Seattle Sounders. Bryan Acosta received a red card in the Kansas City contest and is suspended for the Atlanta match.
Atlanta (3-2-7, 11 points) dropped its home contest to Inter Miami CF 2-1 Sept. 19. Jon Gallagher scored the lone goal for Atlanta in defeat.
“The first issue is that we lost the first goal on the counter attack,” Atlanta interim manager Stephen Glass said. “That’s something we specifically talked about the opportunity to tackle on their half to prevent the counter. That’s something that should be prevented. We didn’t get shots off in the second half.”
Atlanta is now winless in its last six contests and won only one of its last 11 matches dating back to July 21. Atlanta sits 12th in the Eastern Conference standings, one point out of 10th place and a spot in the playoffs.
“Dallas is coming off of three wins,” Glass said. “It’s not easy in this league on any given day but this isn’t a group of players that are going to roll over and accept that things aren’t happening. There are fine margins to getting wins and hopefully that starts Wednesday night.”