FRISCO - The final 29 minutes of FC Dallas' season produced a range of emotions. Desperation. Hope. Frustration. And eventually dejection. It was a rollicking period with a flurry of goals and end-to-end action. One team, Portland, was clinging to its lead.
The other, FC Dallas, was trying everything to erase it.
In the end, though, nothing had really changed after 97 minutes Sunday. The two clubs forged a 2-2 tie in the second leg of the Western Conference Championship, meaning the Timbers advanced to the MLS Cup final on a 5-3 aggregate score. It was only the fifth time this season FC Dallas walked out of Toyota Stadium without a victory.
"We are obviously bummed," midfielder Ryan Hollingshead said. "It's such a letdown."
Hollingshead stood in a somber locker room that emptied soon after the final result. Not long before, he and 10 of his teammates were racing all over the field. Many were part of a wave of attackers trying to find a way out of a hole dug seven days before in Portland. The two-goal deficit that would eventually be FC Dallas' undoing had been created Nov. 22 in the Pacific Northwest, when the Timbers prevailed 3-1.
FC Dallas entered Sunday, knowing it was going to have to be the aggressor. But in the first half, its attack was toothless. Portland clogged the middle and closely marked midfielder Mauro Diaz, FC Dallas' most creative player.
Not until the 32nd minute did FC Dallas appear to have a breakthrough. That's when Kellyn Acosta sent in a pinpoint cross that a charging David Texeira redirected with his head. The crowd gasped, anticipating a goal. Then in a blink of an eye, Portland goalkeeper Adam Kwarasey lunged to parry the ball away, preserving the scoreless tie.
For FC Dallas, it was a deflating moment in a first half full of them. It dominated possession in the first 45 minutes, controlling the ball 58 percent of the time. But Texeira's header was the only shot on target.
"Maybe in the first half we could have pushed a little harder and gone a little more forward and created a few more chances," said midfielder Victor Ulloa. "I felt like we were too passive, if I may say."
That would change after Portland's Fanendo Adi pushed away defender Walker Zimmerman, gathered a pass from Diego Valeri, spun and fired a shot past goalkeeper Jesse Gonzalez in the 54th minute. The goal stunned FC Dallas, which now had to score at least three times to stay alive.
"It kind of woke some guys up on our team and they started playing," defender Matt Hedges said.
Yet it wasn't until the 66th minute when veteran forward Blas Perez replaced Texeira that the complexion of the match changed. Soon thereafter, Diaz dropped a beautiful pass over Portland's back line that landed on the feet of Hollingshead, who tucked the ball in the far corner of the goal. The score was tied and the crowd started to buzz.
The fans' roars grew to a fever pitch in the 73rd minute after Diaz took advantage of a free kick and placed the ball on the head of Perez, who then redirected it past Kwarasey. Just like that, FC Dallas had a 2-1 lead and needed only one more goal to even the aggregate score.
"Here we go again," said FC Dallas coach Oscar Pareja. "I saw that energy flowing in the air."
So did the players.
"We believed we could do it," Ulloa said.
But Portland regrouped, retreating into a defensive posture. For the next 19 minutes, FC Dallas wouldn't muster a shot. Its last opportunity would come in stoppage time, when Perez lined up a promising chance inside the box. But before his attempt reached the net, defender Nat Borchers blocked it. Then came the knockout blow, which was delivered on the other end of the field.
With a great individual effort, Lucas Melano evaded Gonzalez before using the outside part of his right foot to slide the ball into FC Dallas' goal. A deadlock had been created and FC Dallas' season extinguished in one agonizing sequence.
"Unfortunately," Pareja said, "this is it."
The end arrived suddenly.
On Twitter: @RainerSabinDMN