The Vancouver Whitecaps' stay in the 2014 MLS Cup Playoffs is over a mere 90 minutes after it began, with FC Dallas winning the Western Conference knockout-round fixture, 2-1, on Wednesday night in Frisco, Texas.

The match looked destined for extra time until referee Mark Geiger blew his whistle and pointed to the spot in the 82nd minute for a handball on Vancouver center back Kendall Waston. Nobody will argue with the fact that the ball hit Waston's arm, but many took exception to Geiger's decision to award the penalty.

Opta's Ben Jata felt that Waston's arm was in a natural position, thus it was a ball-to-hand situation rather than hand-to-ball:

MLSSoccer.com's Dan Itel couldn't believe the 26-year-old's luck, considering he had played well for so much of the match:

Regardless of the dissenting opinion, Geiger's call was final, and FC Dallas midfielder Michel drove home the penalty in the 84th minute to hand his team a place in the next round:

For FC Dallas, this run to the MLS Cup Playoffs is a chance to undo years of disappointment. After losing to the Colorado Rapids in the 2010 MLS Cup Final, they fell to the New York Red Bulls in the 2011 wild-card game and missed out on the postseason altogether in 2012 and 2013.

Dallas manager Oscar Pareja wanted to ensure that his players didn't squander this opportunity, per Goal's Jon Arnold:

It’s a young roster with a lot of players who have not been in the playoffs before. In that case, my approach to them is just get one game at a time with the same intensity and importance. Sometimes it’s a difficult task to accomplish, but that way I can make them understand that’s the way you have to play the age is always with urgency and responsibility.

FC Dallas dodged a major bullet on Wednesday. Had the game gone into extra time or a penalty shootout, it's anybody's guess as to what would've happened. FC Dallas didn't play particularly well, but that's not necessarily an indictment as to its MLS Cup chances.

Every eventual champion rides its luck at some point, and the Dallas players will likely use Wednesday's win as a learning opportunity going forward. With a team like Dallas that's been out of the postseason for a few years, a learning curve is to be expected.

Maybe the FC Dallas players can get a few words of wisdom from Dirk Nowitzki, who's won an NBA title with the Dallas Mavericks. Nowitzki watched the match at home and did what he could to support his local side:

Shouts of "Tor!" were likely heard from the Nowitzki household after FC Dallas winger Tesho Akindele scored the opening goal in the 40th minute. Dallas caught Vancouver on the counter, getting numbers in the attacking third. The Whitecaps defense was sucked into the middle of the pitch by the run of Mauro Diaz, which opened up Akindele to the right, and Akindele fired his shot into the far post.

Diaz deserves a ton of credit for the goal. He made things about as easy as possible for Akindele by getting both Whitecaps center backs Waston and Andy O'Brien to try to check his run. Jata laid plenty of blame at the feet of Waston and O'Brien, whose miscommunication left Vancouver goalkeeper David Ousted on his own:

Both teams looked very tentative in the first half, with neither side creating much in the final third. When that happens, creative players like Diaz are expected to provide the breakthrough, and he duly delivered. His assist was all the more impressive considering that he was battling injury not too long ago.

The problem for Dallas is that it couldn't muster any more in the attack. The Whitecaps defense recovered quickly and shut down the passing lanes for FC Dallas players in the final third.

That wasn't so much of an issue in the first half, during which Vancouver failed to string more than three or four passes together. Once the whistle blew for the second half, however, the Whitecaps were a different team. They were much more fluid and began posing a greater threat near the Dallas goal.

This was no more evident than by Mauro Rosales' free kick that caromed off the crossbar in the 47th minute:

That shot breathed life into the Whitecaps and in the minutes immediately following Rosales' close call, they attacked with a renewed confidence. You could feel a goal coming, and it arrived in the 64th minute, courtesy of Erik Hurtado.

FC Dallas did a poor job of clearing away a free kick, and eventually the ball fell to Hurtado, who had time and space to measure up his right-footed shot, which found the right corner. Arnold documented the various events leading up to the goal:

Devang Desai, who writes for Toronto FC, felt that the goal was lacking in beauty:

Vancouver was arguably the better side in the second half, but it failed to build upon the momentum created by Hurtado's equalizer. The Whitecaps had Dallas on the ropes, but they didn't go for the jugular. As a result, they opened the door for something fluky late in the game—Waston's handball—to end up providing the final nail in their coffin.

Dallas moves on to play the top-seeded Seattle Sounders in the Western Conference Semifinals. The winner of that game will get the winner of the other semifinal between the Los Angeles Galaxy and Real Salt Lake.

Both the conference semifinals and finals are over two legs, so the sense of urgency won't be quite as acute for Dallas as it was on Wednesday. The club can have a bad first leg and still manage to go through on aggregate.

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