Luca Orellano scored early in the second half and Roman Celentano stopped two shots as FC Cincinnati did just enough to beat slumping FC Dallas 1-0 on Saturday in Frisco, Texas, in only the teams’ second meeting.
The Orange and Blue (13-4-3, 42 points) have won three of their past four contests after a season-best seven-game winning streak and improved to 1-1 against FC Dallas.
Cincinnati, last season’s Supporters’ Shield winner, remained in second place in the Eastern Conference.
Celentano recorded his fifth clean sheet of the season. The Orange and White are a league-best 8-1-1 away from home in 2024.
Dallas (5-10-5, 20 points) lost its second straight match and had no shots on goal after halftime.
Dallas produced the match’s first shot on target when Logan Farrington tested Celentano in the 15th minute. Celentano swallowed up the shot, which came a minute after Asier Illarramendi missed the target on a low-percentage opportunity a minute earlier.
Celentano was forced into his second save in the 41st minute when he stopped Eugene Ansah. The Orange and Blue then had a late first-half scoring chance as Orellano hit the crossbar with a shot from outside the box three minutes into first-half stoppage time.
Orellano then found the net in the 47th minute, beating Dallas goalkeeper Maarten Paes with a left-footed shot from the center of the box after an assist by Gerardo Valenzuela. Orellano did most of the work himself, taking the ball from near the right sideline before dribbling just into the area and finding a hole in the Dallas defense before unleashing his shot into the upper-left corner.
The Orange and Blue worked to expand their lead as Alvas Powell bore down on Paes from the left side in the 68th minute but had his shot saved by the Dallas keeper.
The Toros quickly went on the counterattack with Sebastian Lletget ripping a shot off the left post in Dallas’ best scoring chance of the first two-thirds of the match. Then in the 72nd minute Illarramendi had a low-percentage chance that Celentano dove to his left to push away.
–Field Level Media
