Seattle Sounders v FC Dallas: Hat-trick hero Musa excited by new attacking style

Petar Musa scored a hat-trick in FC Dallas’ thrilling win over Minnesota United in midweek, and he is thrilled with the attacking set-up under interim coach Peter Luccin.

Dallas beat Minnesota 5-3 at home on Wednesday, making it three games unbeaten.

The club dismissed Nico Estevez on June 9, and Musa suggested Luccin has let the team off the leash from an attacking standpoint.

“I think we play more vertically towards the goal,” said Musa.

“We are more offensive now, we have a lot of players who run behind and we started playing more attacking football.

"We scored five goals at home so you can see from the build-up that we play attacking soccer. I am very happy about the new style we are implementing.”

Luccin added: “I’m thankful and grateful for the effort from the players. It’s very important for me that the effort has been fantastic. I’m very pleased with some of the sequences that we had, playing good football and very vertical.

“Overall, the goals that we conceded, sometimes we need to be a little bit smarter. All the players have been fantastic. Five goals at home, I think the fans were very happy.

“I’m sure they would’ve liked fewer goals conceded but it’s part of the game. We are making progress. It’ll be step-by-step but you can see the attitude from the players is excellent. They want to play, they understand. Now we need to adjust to find that balance. I really think we deserved to win.”

Next up for Dallas is a trip to the northwest, to face the Seattle Sounders.

Dallas are one place and two points below Seattle in the Western Conference.

Shoutout to Dallas, our striker’s a star Petar Musa has been named the MLS Player of the Matchday. pic.twitter.com/5paOR2ySFc

— FC Dallas (@FCDallas) June 20, 2024

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Seattle Sounders – Jackson Ragen

Ragen scored his first MLS goal in Seattle's 2-2 draw with the Houston Dynamo last time out. He is the seventh different player from the United States to score for the Sounders in MLS play this season, equalling their number from all of last season.

FC Dallas – Petar Musa

Musa’s hat-trick took him onto eight MLS goals for the season, four more than any other team-mate.

He is the sixth Dallas player with a hat trick for the team since the beginning of 2017, tying them with D.C. United for most such players with a hat-trick in that time.

MATCH PREDICTION: SEATTLE WIN

The Sounders are unbeaten in 20 straight home matches across all competitions against Dallas (16 wins, four draws), in a run dating back to August 2011.

They could equal the longest ever unbeaten home run by one MLS team against another here (21, achieved twice).

With Dallas winless in 11 MLS road games dating back to last October (three draws, eight defeats), we expect the Sounders to claim a slice of history.

OPTA WIN PROBABILITY

Seattle Sounders – 47.5%

FC Dallas – 26.4%

Draw – 26.2%