FRISCO, Texas – Aided by a first-half red card for Adam Moffat, the San Jose Earthquakes earned their first road win of the 2014 season on Saturday night as a Jean-Baptiste Pierazzi thunderbolt secured a 2-1 victory over FC Dallas at Toyota Stadium.
San Jose carved out the game's first real chance in the 10th minute, forcing Dallas defender Matt Hedges to make a goalline save.
FC Dallas opened the scoring in the 16th minute, with Fabian Castillo feeding Panamanian international Blas Perez for a strong finish. After the goal, Dallas looked the stronger side for a period of time, but in the 25th minute, Adam Moffat received a yellow card for persistent infringement, starting a cascade of problems for the home team.
In the 27th minute, the Earthquakes evened the game at a goal apiece, with former Dallas player Atiba Harris finishing a set of passes from Shea Salinas and Steven Lenhart.
Eight minutes later, Moffat received his second yellow card, this time for a tactical foul of Yannick Djalo as he was making a dangerous run through to the Dallas penalty area. That resulted in the North Texans’ sixth red card of the season, one shy of their all-time record of seven set in 2008.
The gamewinner came in the 45th minute when San Jose midfielder Pierazzi took advantage of the space left by Moffat’s absence to hit a wonder-strike from 35 yards out, a powerful shot from distance that easily beat Dallas goalkeeper Chris Seitz.
But Dallas had a great chance to level in first-half stoppage time when Jordan Stewart was called for a foul in the area, leading to a penalty kick for Castillo. Veteran goalkeeper Jon Busch read the attempt, however, and made the save to preserve the lead going into halftime.
FCD made a number of changes to start the second half and played with conviction and purpose, earning a number of chances, but were not able to find the tying goal.
It was these teams' second straight meeting in which the home side had a player ejected in the first half, but this time, the Earthquakes were able to make the most of the man advantage. They previously played on May 10 in San Jose, with Salinas getting a first-half red card for San Jose, but the Earthquakes rode goals by Cordell Cato and an own goal by David Texeira to a 2-1 victory.
