“It was quite hot and the Rowdies were playing to their strengths,” the 26-year-old Paes said of a game in which the hometown underdogs were in control of possession and chances – and which required interventions aplenty from the Dallas goalkeeper. “All credit to them for the fight they put up.”
Paes is too humble, too much of the straight-shooting Dutchman, to say what the real difference on the day was. But his teammates know. “He [Paes] was incredible,” said Farrington, who scored the winner in the 2-1 victory. Incredible, yes. And busy too. Paes, with his quick-as-cat reflexes, made a career-high eight saves in the game.
His performance at Al Lang Stadium, steps from Tampa’s Bay, prompted all manner of puns and memes on social media: Masterklas Maarten Paes, Thou shall not Paes to name a few.
“We had to struggle to win,” said Paes, who knows the challenges of meeting lower-division teams in Cup play from his days with both Utrecht and hometown side NIC Nijmegen in his native Netherlands. “But we found a way to win, and that’s what counts.
“In the Cup, it only matters if you go through or not,” he said after standing on his head to make sure his side pushed on to the next big test. It’s a Quarterfinal for the two-time Open Cup Champions (1997 and 2016) on the road against four-time Open Cup Champions Sporting Kansas City.
At Home in Dallas
“When I was a kid there was a show called Dallas on TV, with the famous J.R. Ewing, and I thought that was what it was going to be like,” he chuckled, before getting serious about the place he’s found himself and where he’s “grown a lot on and off the pitch” to become one of the top netminders in Major League Soccer. “But the city is really a center of sports in America – the Rangers, the Mavs.”
Paes has also made it his business to learn the history of his new club, in the Open Cup and beyond. “It might not be as well known to Europeans, but the history here is very interesting to dive into,” said Paes, whose current playing home of Toyota Stadium also houses the National Soccer Hall of Fame and is home to our Open Cup’s original prize: The Dewar Cup. “The Open Cup is at the center of that history for us.”
“It’s a trophy that’s close to our hearts here at FC Dallas. The name Lamar Hunt, a founding father of MLS and this club, is inscribed on the U.S. Open Cup,” said Paes, ahead of the trip to Kansas City with a place in the Semifinals on the line.
“They [SKC] knocked us out of the Cup two years ago [in 2022] but I always enjoy playing there,” said Paes about Kansas City, which he calls a “real soccer city.” “Sure, they’re struggling in the league this year, but with players like Daneil Salloi and Johnny Russell, it’s always a big challenge.”
Both clubs have had wobbly seasons so far, to be fair. Sporting Kansas City, second-from-bottom in the MLS Western Conference, recently parted ways with their technical director Brian Bliss. FC Dallas are undergoing a revival after current coach Peter Luccin replaced Nico Estévez in June – with three points more than SKC (as of July 1st).
