Getting Reacquainted with FC Dallas, MLS's Consummate B (or B-) Students

How's your Italian, young man?

[Standing Disclaimer: While I have watched…just a stupid amount of MLS over the years, I don’t watch the vast majority of games, never mind all of them. As such, it’s fair to take anything below that isn’t a hard number or a physical trophy as an impression, a couple steps removed.]

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FC Dallas, fka, the Dallas Burn undermine the entire “Joy Point” concept (see end of post for methodology*) because they rank seventh in MLS history more for consistency than what any fan would recognize as joy. Choosing their best season required no more thought than choosing between the two seasons they actually won a trophy. Dallas rose to these lofty heights the same way Red Bull New York did – i.e., by being in the league for as long as they have and consistently making the playoffs. Unlike the Red Bulls, I don’t believe anyone outside their most committed fans (meant, here, as both committed and “committed”) have ever uttered the words, “I think this is Dallas’ year. They did reach MLS Cup once, in 2010, but they lost to…the Colorado Rapids. (When people tell you that MLS is a weird league, believe them.) And yet, and to their very real credit, Dallas have missed the playoffs just seven times in 28 seasons (including one season they got tagged by the Wooden Spoon (2003)) and they finished in the top half of the table in (literally) half the time. Not a bad run, all in all, but not a great one, and not what any reasonable person would describe as “joy.” If one had to grade the Dallas franchise what could you give them but a B, or maybe even a B-. On the plus side, they do have that dynamite academy, aka, America’s answer to Ajax in the Eredivisie…makes you wonder how high they could rise if they kept some of those promising players two days after their 20th birthday. Or thereabouts.

Best Season(s)

The 2016 season, easily, and with nod to the prior season as a sign of things to come. I had to check back to both rosters to remember who suited up for them in both years (2015 and 2016) and, small coincidence, those same players are well-represented (if not over-represented and via a cheat) in the 10 Players to know section below. Those sections speak to another general truth about FC Dallas: it’s less that they never make ambitious signings than that they often miss the mark when they do, sometimes wildly. At any rate, Dallas won both the Supporters’ Shield and the U.S. Open Cup in 2016, which means their fans felt actual joy once – which I suppose beats the usual experience of salivating over the latest academy kid that they’ll say goodbye to right around the time they remember his name...

Long-Term Tendencies

Even as I have to admit they applied less than I expected, FC Dallas seasons do have some distinct and consistent through-lines. They generally field strong defenses, for one (17 of 28 seasons), though that trend has deepened of late (i.e., 11 of those seasons occurred over the last 14 seasons). That matters because Dallas hasn’t put together a high-scoring season - i.e., they haven’t gone well over the league average for goals scored – since 2009…when they missed the playoffs because (yep) the defense bled goals on the wine-red sea (the Iliad? Maybe?). Most notably, that held in that Shield-winning season of 2016, when they scored just a shade over the league average of 48.6 goals (Dallas bagged 50). Again, recent seasons have seen that combination of a strong defense and a flagging attack has come perilously close to becoming FC Dallas’…

Identity: Shoot for the stars, hit the ceiling. Like clockwork.

Joy Points: 18, i.e., higher than I expected, my scale is fucked and I am sad.

10 Names to Know (with an honorable mention to Bobby Rhine)

Jason Kreis

He had the instincts of a forward and the space-breaking subtlety of an attacking mid – or at least the MLS 1.0 equivalent thereof. That made Kreis Dallas’ first, if half-accidental, star attacking player (by which I mean you simply had no way of knowing who would come good in those early seasons and 97 goals is that opposite of shabby; and it's not like he's done in MLS).

Ariel Graziani

An Argentine midfielder back when MLS had to lure South American players with something other than money and a decade and a half before any rational player/agent would see a move to MLS as anything but a dead-end. Graziani didn’t last long, but he had talent, felt genuinely exotic, and stayed in the States long enough to play for two teams (San Jose was the other one). It was lot of anonymous between Graziani and Dallas’ best years.

Denilson

Arguably, MLS’s greatest cautionary tale, i.e., the bright shining object that not only failed to shine, but who fucked off (or fell down; don’t really recall and does it really matter?) after just eight games in Dallas. So very many seasons removed from his (then-) record-breaking transfer to Spain’s Real Betis, he (likely) came to Dallas in 2007 looking for easy competition and a steady paycheck.

David Ferreira

Papa Ferreira came to Dallas on loan from Brazil’s Atletico Paranaense in 2009 and became Dallas’ skeleton key for the attack that carried them to MLS Cup 2010. Again, see the last time Dallas fielded a team that went well over the season average for goals scored. Quick AF and equally technical, Ferreira had a knack for finding space and causing chaos in Zone 14. Plus, free kicks!

Leg. End.

Blas Perez

One of the most hated and, by the same token, the most under-appreciated forwards in MLS history. Like any good heel (a la pro wrestling), the Panamanian forward reveled in the dirty work; it’s possible he liked that as much as scoring goals, if not more. Dallas unearthed a gem when they found him and he presaged their better days (he left after the 2015 season).

Heath Pearce/Clarence Goodson/Matt Hedges/Walker Zimmerman

Of course this is cheating, but Dallas has either signed, found or developed some of the best long-time defenders in MLS history – i.e., there is a reason why they became the stubborn shits they did on the defensive end of the field.

Michael Barrios

He’s traveled a bit (too much, perhaps?) since his best seasons in Dallas, but if MLS has a pantheon of underrated players, I’ll fight anyone who says Barrios doesn’t belong in it. Blessed with skill, decent power (or a low, low center of gravity) and the engine of your finer hybrids, Barrios could positively torment any fullback in his day. A key component of Dallas’ better seasons.

Fabian Castillo

Castillo actually posted slightly lower numbers for Dallas than Barrios, but I’d still argue that he counts as the rare high-profile signing that actually came good for Dallas. It helps if you think of him and Barrios as chaos agents disrupting opposite sides of the opposition’s defense, aka, partners in the crime of scoring goals.

Mauro Diaz

The heir-apparent to Ferreira Sr., and quite possibly more talented, Diaz promised to return Dallas to its better, more exciting days. He may have fell short of making them an attacking juggernaut, but an improved supporting cast made every goal and assist Diaz scored (and his numbers were good in both 2015 and 2016) count a little more. In that way, and for good or ill, Diaz’s time with Dallas pointed to a future that has arrived, in the form of…

Jesus Ferreira

There’s no questioning his talent, Ferreira Jr. runs his legs off, he has a good balance of quality as a goal-scorer and someone who can combine all over the attacking third…and yet what does he deliver but more of the same? With an ever-stout defense behind him, he can carry an attack that gets them in the playoffs, but…from there?

Where They Finished in 2023 & What the Past Says About That, If Anything

Fun fact, the average for goals scored and allowed in MLS 2023 regular season was 46.8. Dallas fell well below on the attacking side and even further under on goals allowed. If there is a most Dallas season from, say, 2010 to the present, it’s making the playoffs only to fall in the first official round…and look who knocked them out in both last season and in their Shield-winning annus mirabilis of 2016: the Seattle Sounders, i.e., a strong defensive team, aka, rat poison to a team that struggles to run up the score. Given the sum of all things, the question becomes one of whether Dallas can break the mold they’ve built over the past decade or so and actually win something?

Notes/Impressions on the Current Roster/State of Ambition

The wild thing about any FC Dallas roster over the past 10 seasons is that they are straight-up loaded with players half the teams in MLS would kill to have in the same position. They have very real talent all over on the current (off-season) one, but the sum of it keeps falling short of glory. In a change that probably doesn’t feel all that refreshing for Dallas fans, the core of the roster is a little older and a little less promising than in seasons past. By which I mean, Alan Velasco (for example) aside, the team seems to have leaned into established, veteran players like Paul Arriola, Sebastians Lletget, and Ibeagha, and even Marco Farfan to get them closer to a trophy…and, as noted above, nah, didn’t really work. For all the good-to-great pieces they have all over – e.g., Paxton Pomykal (so long as you don’t expect him to be what he isn’t) and Maarten Paes (who is really damn good) – I don’t see anyone on the current roster who can change the now-historic equation…

…and today, on reddit, I saw that meme with the tall, squiggly figure poking the ground with a stick, waiting for something anything to happen. And, if as an outsider, that matches what I see as Dallas’ level of ambition. Near as I can tell, they’re content to develop talent and just make the playoffs till the end of time.

* Joy Point Index

Winning the CONCACAF Champions’ League: 5 points

Claiming Supporters’ Shield : 4 points

Winning MLS Cup: 3 points

MLS Cup Runner-Up: 2 points

Winning the U.S. Open Cup: 2 points

Winning CONCACAF Champions Cup: 2 points

MLS Is Back Cup: 2 points (yeah, yeah, I’m a Timbers fan; still, that was a tough one)

CONCACAF Champions League Semifinalist: 1 point

Making the Playoffs: 1 point

Missing the Playoffs: -1 point

Missing Playoffs in 1996-97, 2002-2004 (when 80% of the league qualified): - 2 points

Wooden Spoon: -3 points