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| FC Dallas Academy, Class of [Every Year]. |
The post ends with a scale I came up with to measure the long-term success of every team in Major League Soccer. It does some things well (e.g., count trophies/achievements), other things less well (capture recent trends). It's called the Joint Points Scale and you can find a link that explains what it does. I was really stoned when I came up with the scale and wrote the post. Caveat lector. With that...
Thumbnail History
FC Dallas, fka, the Dallas Burn have the singular honor of playing in the most WTF MLS Cup ever played. When they lined up against the Colorado Rapids – then competing in their second final – I have to believe that the collective response boiled down to, “sure, why not?” Apart from winning the 2016 Supporters’ Shield (and tying Red Bull New York on total points in 2015), FC Dallas have not enjoyed what most people – including what I'm guessing is a non-trivial percentage of their fans - would call obvious success. When it comes to actual silverware, they have the Shield mentioned above plus U.S. Open Cup titles in 1997 and 2016 (a great year, by their standards), aka, not much to fill the cabinet after 30 seasons. And yet they still gently undermine the entire “Joy Point” concept (see below for methodology*) because they rank ninth in MLS history based more for consistency than what any fan would recognize as joy. They racked up most of those points by just clearing low bar to make the playoffs over MLS’s first ten seasons – which took some fucking missing when the league had only 10-16 teams – and, while things have slowed down, they have generally made the playoffs every other season (or so) since then. More to the point, it’s not like Dallas hasn’t tried to keep up with MLS’s bigger, richer teams: hell, they swung hard to land one-time FIFA Player of the Year, Denilson, if at a bargain price; they very much got what they paid for. To their credit, they kept their chins up on either side of that debacle, with smart(er) signings like Ariel Graziani (his second stop) and Ronnie O’Brien, some of your better surprises of their eras, even if injuries ate too much of O’Brien’s career. Their hit-rate improved on the foreign signings side, even with some hitches, with league-elite players like David Ferreira and, less so (due to injury), Mauro Diaz, or even a higher-profile (if gently under-performing) player like Fabian Castillo. More than anything else, Dallas has relied on, and I mean this sincerely, top-notch budget signings – e.g., Michael Barrios, Blas Perez, and running one of, if not the most effective academy systems in these United States. The long list of graduates include Kellyn Acosta, Jesus Ferreira, Reggie Cannon, Brandon Servania, Ricardo Pepi, and, from the LA Galaxy’s 2024 MLS Cup team, Edwin Cerrillo. [NOTE: I like to limit links with active players; who knows where they'll go?] Moreover, Dallas’ belief in youth has kick-started some of the all-time great careers in MLS history (picking through this all-time list), e.g., Walker Zimmerman, Drew Moor, Clarence Goodson, Matt Hedges…I hope you’re seeing the pattern in there (see below). Against that, I’ve covered what all the above has given them and have no doubt that falls short of what both the organization and the fans of it want. Still, that dynamite academy, aka, America’s answer to the Eredivisie’s AFC Ajax, doesn’t look like it’s going away anytime soon…and yet, who can help but wonder how high they could rise if they kept some of those promising players two days after their 20th birthday.
2025, Briefly
Dallas started 2025 by pushing a lot of chips behind Luciano Acosta, a proven and discontented player they lured from FC Cincinnati. The change of scenery improved neither his mood nor Dallas’ performances and player and team parted ways early. From there, I think the best way to summarize Dallas’ 2025 season hangs on a question – in their defense, this applies to most teams that make the MLS post-season: do you remember anything about their playoff run? For all the non-Dallas fans out there, they got booted out in the second game in a three-game series against a Vancouver team that blew them out in the first game, but had to push into stoppage time for the equalizer that took Game 2 to penalties. That same ‘Caps team went to MLS Cup – so no shame and all that (even if they lost) – but Dallas came into the playoffs as an average team and left the same way. Fortunately for them, average goes a long way in MLS’s bloated playoff set up (“come one, come all, plenty of room on the fabulous roller coaster!), especially given the indecisive muddle in the middle of the Western Conference in 2025.
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| A rare, iykyk. |
Long-Term Tendencies v Recent Trends
Even as I have to admit they applied less than I expected, FC Dallas seasons do have some distinct and consistent through-lines. They field strong defenses just over half the time (17 of 30 seasons), though that trend has deepened of late (i.e., 10 the last 15 seasons). Because Dallas doesn’t see many high-scoring teams - i.e., average to a couple goals over average is their jam on the attacking side (19 of 30) - their best years (2014-2023, very roughly) pair with their sturdiest defenses. That certainly held in the Shield-winning season of 2016, when Diaz made the most out of a better-than-average, though far from league-best defense by lifting them to just a shade over the league average of 48.6 goals (Dallas bagged 50). The balance got out of whack over the past several – e.g., floppy attacks betrayed solid defenses in 2022-2023; when the attack firmed up to average in 2024-2025, the defense went soft (that metaphor didn’t end where it started…) – but even those seasons saw Dallas make the playoffs three times out of four. As you’ll see below, and as their fans ruefully remember, they haven’t gone past the quarterfinals since 2015. They thud you’re hearing is Dallas’ heads hitting the ceilings like ghosts rattling around your basement.
Players I Still Like/Additions So Far
Petar Musa is as complete a forward as you’ll see in MLS, so that’s a good place to start. I rate Lucas Farrington a capable second banana (aka, supporting, yet primary attacking piece), so long as he stays healthy. Dallas had enough spare change to throw toward the goal to make it work in 2025 – e.g., six goals for Anderson Julio (a decent risk) and four assists for Shak Moore (safe, but okay!) – but that’s not an attack that covers for a middling defense. Sebastian Ibeagha started most games and, unless Osaze Urhoghide plays one fullback or another, Dallas had a fairly stable defensive core. Which brings me to my main question: Dallas has so far declined nine options and released one contract this offseason, and there's not a defender among them. As such, one has to assume they’re (mostly) rolling over the defense from 2025. They haven’t been wholly inactive in the 2025-26 offseason - they brough in a Swede named Herman Johansson (numbers look like a No. 8?) and an Israeli midfielder named Ran Binyamin (who tore up their second division) – but it looks like homegrowns all the way down from there (again, click, scroll down). Nothing really ambitious, in other words, but isn’t that the Dallas model in some ways? I don’t think I oversell the point much when I say FC Dallas was a selling organization long before MLS became a (largely) selling league. And that’s what they’ll look like in 2026. Enjoy Musa, people. He’s really good.
Historical Success(/Hysterical Failure)
Total Joy Points: 22
How They Earned Them (& *How This Is Calculated, for Reference)
Supporters’ Shield: 2016
MLS Cup Runner-Up: 2010
MLS Playoffs Semifinals: 1997, 1999, 2015
MLS Playoffs/Quarterfinals: 1996, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2014, 2016, 2020, 2022, 2025
Wooden Spoon: 2003
CCL Semifinals: 2017
U.S. Open Cup: 1997: 2016
U.S. Open Cup Runner-Up: 2005, 2007
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