After 158 days since their season halted in March and being removed from the #MLSisBack Tournament, FC Dallas returned to the Toyota Stadium in front of a limited crowd on Wednesday night.

FCD hosted a newly added MLS expansion team, Nashville SC, in an entertaining yet slow-paced game. Both sides had some opportunities to open up the scoring, but most attempts were unsuccessful. Both teams missed out on the #MLSisBack tournament due to rising COVID-19 cases within the teams. FCD and Nashville hadn’t played competitively since March when MLS decided to halt their seasons along with every other pro and college organizations around the country.

This game saw the return of two former FCD players, 33-year-old Dax McCarty who represented the club from 2006-2010, and 27-year-old Walker Zimmerman, who was with the club from 2012-2017.

Wednesday’s defeat broke Dallas’ 13-game home unbeaten streak. We saw newly signed Argentine striker Franco Jara make his FCD debut playing a total of 60 minutes. Brazilian midfielder Thiago Santos was again fundamental in the team’s attacking buildup; unfortunately, they didn’t see the positive end to their efforts.

Nashville’s David Accam scored his first and the game’s lone goal in the 86th minute to stun the home side. Accam came in as a substitute replacing Randall Leal just minutes before finding the back of the net. This win against FCD was Nashville’s first-ever MLS win.

Post-Match Reactions

Dallas’ Head Coach Luchi Gonzalez gave his takeaways of the match. “Disappointing,” Luchi said, “This is not the way we wanted to open up the season again at home.” Luchi added to his remarks, “We worked hard. the I’m sorry to our fans and supporters.”

"We need to be more together."

Post game reactions from Luchi and Reggie after last night's loss.

Recap: https://t.co/g2KeHqJoQF pic.twitter.com/a0JSuvilYO

— FC Dallas (brandon’s goal should be no.1) (@FCDallas) August 13, 2020

Defender Reggie Cannon took the spotlight in his post-match interview. Cannon reacted to fans booing and throwing stuff at players and staff for kneeling during the American National Anthem.

“Absolutely disgusting,” Cannon said, “You got fans booing you for people taking a stand for what they believe in. Millions of other people support this cause and we discussed with every other team and the league what we’re going to do and we’ve got fans booing us in our own stadium. How disgraceful is that? Honestly, for lack of a better word, it pissed me off. … You can’t even have support form your own fans in your own stadium. It’s baffling to me.” A powerful statement from Reggie against the fans who didn’t agree with the team’s actions.

“It hurts me because I love our fans I love this club and I want to see the support that the league has given us, that everyone has given us from our fans,” he said. “I love the people that came out tonight but as soon as I heard that boo I tried to play on and I knew what to expect. We’ll take it one day at a time and again we’re unified in this response and everyone stands together, black, white, orange, everyone stands together in this.”

Upcoming Fixtures

This game was the first of two consecutive matches between the clubs, with the second set for Sunday again at Toyota Stadium. FCD hopes to turn it around on Sunday and be more concrete in their decision-making. There may be a change in formation and lineup to adhere to a more competitive match in search of the three points.