 |
| But....is it really waiting to be filled? |
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 in MLS Cup 2010 – 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, very much including a whopping percentage of their fans, would call 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 29 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 simply by clearing low bar to make the playoffs over MLS’s first ten seasons – it took some fucking missing when the league had only 10-16 teams – and, while things have slowed down, they have (very) 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 a one-time world-record transfer, Denilson, only to miss harder than the swung. To their credit, they kept their chins up on either side of that debacle, signing players like Ariel Graziani and Ronnie O’Brien while most MLS burned time waiting for the next kids to graduate (yes, that’s a gross over-simplification). They improved on the signing side, if with some hitches, by landing playmakers like David Ferreira and, less so (due to injury), Mauro Diaz, or even a higher-profile (if gently under-performing) player like Fabian Castillo…and, unless you want to throw in a current player like Petr Musa, thus endeth the short list. More than anything else, Dallas has relied on, and I mean this sincerely, top-notch budget signings everyone else missed – e.g., Michael Barrios, Blas Perez, and running one of, if not the most effective academy/homegrown system in these United States. That long list includes Kellyn Acosta, Jesus Ferreira, Reggie Cannon, Brandon Servania, Ricardo Pepi, and, a star from the Los Angeles Galaxy’s latest run to MLS Cup, Edwin Cerrillo. 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). Going the other way, 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. On the plus side, that dynamite academy, aka, America’s answer to the Eredivisie’s AFC Ajax, doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere 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.
Total Joy Points: 21
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
Wooden Spoon: 2003
CCL Semifinals: 2017
U.S. Open Cup: 1997: 2016
U.S. Open Cup Runner-Up: 2005, 2007
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 29 seasons), though that trend has deepened of late (i.e., 11 of those seasons occurred over the last 15 seasons...wait for it). That matters because Dallas doesn’t often put together high-scoring seasons - 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’ permanent normal.
 |
| "Put me in, coach." - Paxton Pomykal, undelivered |
Their overall…version of success aside,2024 saw Dallas continue their trend of missing the playoffs more often than they make them. Since 2017,and 2020 and 2022 excepted, they have either backed in as a wild card and died promptly or missed the playoffs entirely. Like a couple teams that came before in this series, had Dallas sustained their mid-season form – the period from somewhere in the middle of June, maybe through the Leagues Cup (nope!), and into late August – they would have had a decent chance of making the playoffs clean. Despite closing the 2024 season on a meaningless win (ironic cheer!), Dallas dropped too many points between their best stretch and Decision Day to stay afloat. What happened? The attack hit its mark, if too squarely (i.e., they were entirely average), but the defense doomed them by slipping just over the median on goals allowed. Injuries took their usual toll – e.g., budding, interrupted talent Alan Velasco missed half the season, key-man/DP Jesus Ferreira missed over half the starts, and Paxton Pomykal missed the whole goddamn season(?) – and Plan B only nominally existed. While that leaves some decent pieces on the table – I like Martin Paes as a ‘keeper, Musa played like a legit forward through the absences, and they have a decent cast of players outside the walking wounded (e.g., Nkosi Tafari, Marco Farfan, Asier Illaramendi, Tsiki Ntsabeleng and Sebastian Lletget are all…fine). More to the point, the balance of a team matters – e.g., when an attack works, it forces the other team to defend as much/more than it can attack, etc. Bottom line, Dallas has some good pieces, but it also keeps counting on some broken pieces to deliver that which they cannot.
Questions for Their 2025 Season
Of all the teams in MLS that needs that cold, long look in the mirror, Dallas ranks near the top. I see they signed a new head coach in Eric Quill (used to play that dude in way-back FIFA…aw, memberberries), but it would take a lot to convince me that Europe’s best coach could have coaxed a winning season of 2024’s roster/situation-writ-large in Dallas. To be clear, I say that without a ton of first-hand knowledge/observation, but I’m looking at who they had missing and weighing that against the players that the smart-set tells me they rely upon, and that adds up to a larger problem than hiring someone new to make the impossible decisions. With that precise point in mind, the main question I have about Dallas is whether they have either the flexibility or the resources to build a team that can…against 99.5% of their history, do more than make the playoffs, or if they can keep plumbing the talent pool from their academy, or even make the most out of a 2024 SuperDraft class that got a grade most parents would accept. If I thought they SuperDraft delivered more than something to talk about over the off-season, maybe I'd rate that higher...
More than all of the above, the biggest question around FC Dallas can’t help go back to one nodded to at the end of the first paragraph: do they want to compete for trophies in MLS, or do they want to develop talent and move it onto bigger and better things/price tags? Neither model is crazy, at all, but one makes the local fans happier than the other…presumably. Maybe being a selling club is a kink in the greater Dallas metro area….
No comments:
Post a Comment