FC Dallas will be racking up the frequent-flyer miles over the next five weeks.
After the lights dimmed at Toyota Stadium following the club’s 0-0 draw with the New York Red Bulls last Friday, FCD turned their sights to a five-game road trip that starts this weekend against Montreal (Saturday, 8 pm ET, MLS LIVE) and continues to Kansas City, San Jose, Seattle and Colorado before they return home on June 26.
The 42 days between home games and five straight played on the road are the longest such streaks in franchise history. FCD’s home venue will even have a brand-new pitch by the time the team returns, with the stadium’s grounds crew using this schedule quirk to replace the grass surface for the first time in seven years.
“It’s tough to have one or two road games in a row, but five?” said team captain Matt Hedges. “You see how it is with Toronto and teams that had to go on extended road trips. It’s hard to get a lot of points. So we’ll need to play well.”
A five-game road swing pales in comparison to the seven straight league road games that Toronto FC opened their season with due to the renovation of BMO Field.
The season started favorably for Toronto with a 3-1 opening-day win over Vancouver. But the rigors of the long road trip started to take their toll, as TFC went 2-4 the rest of the way, with another loss to Montreal in the Canadian Championship, before finally returning home for a May 10 visit from Houston.
But playing on the road has not fazed Dallas too much this year. They sport a 2-1-1 record away from Toyota Stadium so far in 2015 and have outscored their opponents 8-5.
“The way we set up, I think we’re a good road team,” goalkeeper Dan Kennedy told MLSsoccer.com. “It’s important that we don’t look at it and think it’s a really tough task.”
This five-game stretch may be a tougher task for the Supporters’ Shield co-leaders than it would be for some other clubs, however. While on first glance the length of the road trip looks like the most daunting aspect of the swing, the fact that Dallas top the Western Conference standings puts a target on their backs and could draw more opposing fans into the stadiums.
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“When you’re in first place, teams are always looking at it like, ‘This is a top team, we need to play well,’” Hedges said. “So that’s another extra challenge.”
But staying true to form, head coach Oscar Pareja views the unusual scheduling not only as a challenge, but an opportunity. While he insists that he approaches the road trip with a day-by-day mentality and is focusing solely on Montreal this weekend, he sees a silver lining in the fact that his team will be spending the next five weekends on planes, busses and in hotel rooms.
“One of the good things that we can take out of it is the bonding of the team and to see us getting through battles at different places and different atmospheres and different countries, since now we’re going to Canada,” Pareja said. “And all those things help us to grow as a group. And it will probably be reflected in the rest of the year.”
