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Union, FCD lock horns at PPL Park

Jun 28, 2013 - 9:04 PM Chester, PA (Sports Network) - A pair of heated interconference rivals face off on Saturday as the Philadelphia Union welcome FC Dallas to PPL Park.

Philadelphia has been in a rich vein of form as of late and is currently riding a four-match home winning streak across all competitions.

Last time out, Philadelphia put together its most complete performance of the season in a convincing 3-0 victory over the New York Red Bulls to move up to second place in the Eastern Conference on 25 points.

The Union had the better of the play all afternoon against a depleted New York team which was missing defender Jamison Olave and midfielders Juninho and Tim Cahill.

Philadelphia struck first seven minutes in as Sheanon Williams served a beautiful ball into the box where Conor Casey was there to head it past Luis Robles.

Philadelphia then caught a good break when New York's Lloyd Sam was sent off for a rash two-footed challenge on Danny Cruz in the 28th minute.

Casey collected his second goal of the day after he cleaned up a rebound from a shot by Keon Daniel in the 62nd minute, and the Union capped off an excellent performance two minutes from time as Sebastien Le Toux sent one into the box for a wide-open Antoine Hoppenot to fire home.

Sunday's win marked the second consecutive match that leading goal scorer Jack McInerney failed to find the back of the net. Casey and Le Toux will have to pick up the scoring slack in the coming weeks while McInerney is away with the U.S. national team for the CONCACAF Gold Cup.

"As a forward obviously you want to score and the most important thing is to put the work in," Casey said. "Jack has put the work in all year and it's good for the other guys like me to come in and take the load off of him."

FC Dallas, meanwhile, is coming off a 2-2 draw at home to Sporting Kansas City last Saturday and a 3-2 loss to Portland on Wednesday in the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open Cup.

FCD was sluggish for 88 minutes of Saturday's draw before two quick goals from Ramon Nunez and Walker Zimmerman salvaged a point and extended the club's home unbeaten streak to 13 consecutive matches.

"I kept looking up above the stadium, where there was a full moon and sometimes full moons are bad karma or bad luck or whatever it may be," said FCD head coach Schellas Hyndman. "Even though we were up a man, I didn't know if we were going to find a goal."

In five all-time meetings between the clubs, FC Dallas has yet to lose, holding a 2-0-3 mark. In last season's only meeting, a seventh minute goal from Blas Perez was canceled out by a 56th-minute Gabriel Gomez tally as the match ended in a 1-1 stalemate.