Key Match In Texas For Philadelphia Union Tonight
PHILADELPHIA, PA (CBS) -- The Philadelphia Union will look to continue their recent solid play as they visit FC Dallas for the Fourth of July.
Despite a coaching change in the middle of this stretch, Philadelphia is actually 2-0-1 in its last three MLS matches (4-7-6 overall). Last time out, they played an outstanding match, rolling past New England on the road, 3-1.
"I think it was just an overall great team performance from everyone in the starting group and the guys that came on," Union midfielder Brian Carroll tells KYW Newsradio. "Just did what they needed to do to contribute to help the team win. We got a couple of great individual plays from Sebastian (Le Toux - 2 goals) and Danny (Cruz - a goal), but other than that the group was just tight and organized and fought and helped each other out."
That win came in the first MLS match for the Union since that coaching change which saw Jim Curtin take over on an interim basis for John Hackworth.
"I think (Curtin's) just made a real focus for us to defend first and make sure that we're an organized group that fights for each other and can still play pretty good soccer going forward," Carroll says. "But finding a way to grind out results no matter how pretty the play may or may not be. He really has brought a certain confidence level to the group, certainly has made us dig deep and work hard and put in a lot of work. Just found a way to communicate with us and get the most out of us."
FC Dallas brings a 6-7-5 mark into this match. Last time out they played Columbus to a scoreless draw.
"They are a good team, they defend really well," Carroll says. "They are connected, they have a bunch of athletic, gifted players that can pull off individual plays and they are a good attacking team. So we're going to need to be able to control their athleticism and be willing to defend as an entire group and take the chances that we hopefully can produce there."
Last season these teams played to 2-2 draw in Chester with Amobi Okugo and Aaron Wheeler scoring the goals.
Philadelphia has never beaten FC Dallas in six all-time meetings (0-2-4)
Tonight's match gets underway at 9:00pm.
Matt Leon spoke with Brian Carroll of the Philadelphia Union.
Brian Carroll
You can follow Matt on Twitter @mattleonkyw.
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