FRISCO, Texas (AP) – Ralph Puriso scored the tying goal three minutes into stoppage time, Belal Halbouni scored the winning goal in Saturday night’s penalty shootout, and the Vancouver Whitecaps defeated FC Dallas on Saturday night to sweep the MLS Cup Playoffs’ first-round series three.
Vancouver, the second seed in the Western Conference, will face either third seed Los Angeles FC or sixth seed Austin in a one-game conference semifinal.
Vancouver’s Thomas Muller and Sebastian Berhalter sandwiched a goal from Dallas’ Petar Moussa to start the shootout, and Patriksson Delgago’s shot hit the crossbar. Kenji Cabrera and Shaq Moore traded goals, then Halbuni scored, and Nolan Norris made a high miss to score for Dallas.
Musa scored his first career goal in an MLS Cup playoff match, giving Dallas a 1–0 lead in the 25th minute. On the counter-attack, Musa ran onto a long ball put forward by Ramiro Benetti (simply known as “Ramilo”) and flicked a shot from the corner of the six-yard box past goalkeeper Yohei Takaoka and into the net.
Ralph Priso’s header (the Whitecaps’ first goal) was deflected by rookie goalie Michael Collodi, resulting in a save, but Priso tucked in the rebound to make it 1-1.
The Whitecaps won the first game 3-0 and dominated from start to finish.
Yohei Takaoka stopped Vancouver’s save with a 2.
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