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...

Portland Timbers 2-2 New England Revolution: Bouncing Back Against the Bullies. Twice.

Remember, the Timbers survived this...

You can cut anything on as many angles as you like. For instance, you can call the Portland Timbers 2-2 home draw against the New England Revolution a failure to rebound from their MLS Cup 2021 loss. Or you could call it a strong result against 2021's record-setting Supporters’ Shield-winning team, and with some major starters - e.g., Larry Mabiala, Dario Zuparic and Felipe Mora - missing, and one regular starter/talisman - Sebastian Blanco - only available as a late sub.

The frame I choose: a short-handed Portland team went down to the Revs twice and came back just as many times with two genuinely beautiful, well-worked goals. One of last season’s heroes, and a favorite son to boot, equalized on the only successful version of the half-impossible play the Timbers tried to pull off all night (i.e., street ball up the gut), while one of last season’s workhorses scored the second equalizer with something beautiful and unexpected. Better still, last year’s attacking promise - aka, Santiago Moreno - combined to set up the first equalizer and generally showed a lot of what he could do.

Those compelled to find fault (and I’ve got one in my head; he lives in the left or right side of my head, still working on his residence) can find it, but I’m rolling with a narrative of resilience. New England scored its first goal at the end of one of those periods that have plagued the Timbers since 2019: one of those spin cycles where they get under a ton’s worth of pressure, where every clearance goes either awry or out for a corner and someone from the other team steps into the path of every outlet pass. Any which way the ball bounces, it spells the Timbers back under pressure. That happened for 10 whole goddamn minutes in the first half - from around the 30th minute to just past the 40th. The wheels spun fairly off during that period and that presented the Timbers with one of the greatest and best sporting cliches of all time: how does the team respond?

And that gets to why the resilience narrative works best in my mind. After struggling to pass out of the back like a man struggling to pass a kidney stone at the end of the first half, Portland/Gio Savarese found the reset from a decent opening 20 minutes to start the second half. From the great move early in the second half that freed Dairon Asprilla for his first, frustrating miss to the similar set-up he put away for Portland's first, the Timbers regained control of the game and set the tempo. And, yes, after Asprilla scored they planted foot on banana peel and let Sebastian Lletget score a go-ahead goal - and just minutes after their equalizer. Their heads could have dropped to their laps in that moment (wait…are you…never mind), sure, but they kept them up, high even, and persevered. As with any bicycle kick, Yimmi Chara’s goal was anything but inevitable, but, in my mind, that came off for the reason to so many Timbers attacks (including the first goal) had failed: they finally spread the field wide enough in the attacking third to open up space for passes. When Asprilla worked the ball to Josecarlos Van Rankin wide on New England’s left, he had the time and space to tee up a tricky cross. And that’s how the ball bounces to a largely vacant back-post and a moment Yimmi Chara will never forget and/or bore his kids with after every bad game they have in high school.

United States 2-0 Costa Rica: Ruler Theory

All shapes, sizes and qualities. All too big for some.

The United States Men’s National came out the other end of a scrapping slog against Costa Rica with a 2-0 win earlier today. It certainly wasn’t handed to the U.S. – Costa Rica kicked ‘em a couple times to remind the U.S. they were there to play (nothing malicious, just present) – and they struggled for long stretches of the game to play through a well-organized and well-coordinated defense. The break-through goals came late, though, and that’s the story of this edgy friendly.

One thing, though: I will never get used to Gregg “Both Gs” Berhalter’s fixation on dicking around with the ball in the back. I think I’m starting to get the risk/reward calculus involved – more below – but you saw the ball get tangled in Zac Steffen’s leg that one time in the second half, and I could feel the breath of that Costa Rican attacker on the back of my neck. Anyway…

The win felt good, especially in the sense that it underlined last weekend’s result against Panama, and in more ways than one, but I won’t project much out of it. From what I understand (I was only half-listening, honestly), the U.S. will have all eligible, healthy players available for the two friendlies coming up at the end of March – against Ecuador and against Chile – and those games will hand us all a big enough ruler to accurately measure the machine “Both Gs” Berhalter is building, and the ground underfoot will feel a little firmer after that. All the same, I plan on withholding judgment on the design and elegance of the car we’re driving till after this summer’s CONCACAF Gold Cup.

Back to the Panama thing, the Americans started just as slowly in this game as they did against Panama, only with the twist of facing Costa Rica, a better team. The Central Americans’ counter was very much on at that point, and they caught the U.S. midfield too far forward a couple times. Their pressure was effective, but also efficient: they built it around positioning, as opposed to scrambling, and they had a player in the pocket of any American when the ball arrived at his feet, plus another player or two nearby foreclosing on available outlets. Yanqui players struggled with this, none more than the Chicago’s Fire’s youngster, Djordje Mihailovic. After impressing around the edges last week against Panama (with his movement, for me), Mihailovic reacted slowly here, and like his head was in different places there, but he coughed up the ball over and over again, and mostly via theft.

Baggio Husidic & LA: The Dual Mystery

One of these guys is a grip. Might even be a key one.

Pop Quiz: If his name wasn't in the title, how many times would someone have to ask you to name a player for the Los Angeles Galaxy before you'd get to Baggio Husidic? For what it's worth, I think he'd be the 13th or 14th choice for most people, even LA's bigger fans.

Like Hollywood (to make an unfair analogy), I think LA has built its legacy by letting the stars soak up the adulation and gift baskets worth hundreds of thousands of dollars while the key grips (which, here, recalls Dan Gargan, A. J. DelaGarza, and even Marcelo Sarvas) hammers every last goddamn nail into the scenery behind them, the backdrop that lets that beautiful career exist, but, hey, no worries...

Still, what is a Baggio Husidic? I'll tell you who. He's a player with a charmed life, a guy who probably would (and, hey, actually did) die with the Chicago Fire, but who has started in the majority of the past three years' games for the Glamour Team of MLS. It only gets weirder when I tell you what he's not. For instance, he's not a strong tackler (and/or an actual risk to others like Nigel de Jong), he's not a devastating one-on-one dribbler (like, say, Sebastian Lletget), he provides neither goals nor assists in great numbers, he's not some brilliant deep-lying passer who shifts the field in novel, new directions: he's just...Baggio Husidic.

And yet he's seen the field in every game but one this season, and he's started 10 games of 18. If I had to guess, I'd describe Husidic's role like this: he's a player who facilitates (somewhat) close to goal by finding LA's "real" skill players; I'm guessing he participates in their high press, at least whenever LA's uses it, and I'm confident he's suited for that.

Game Notes: Los Angeles Galaxy v. Seattle Sounders

Why I Watched It:
It was the array of stars that tempted me: Keane, Gerrard, and, now, Dos Santos. It was only 10 minutes before kickoff that I knew that all of the Seattle Sounders stars would be absent – no Dempsey, no Martins, no Alonso. Hell, Marco Pappa didn't even suit up. Eh, it is what it is.

Overall:
For a good 30 minutes, this one threatened to interest. Even after Chad Barrett epitomized the Sounders season in the space of five seconds by scoring and pulling up lame, Seattle took the game to the Los Angeles Galaxy well enough, at least for a while. They attacked through set-pieces mostly and, as the commentating team pointed out, Seattle's big men – for they are that – gave Omar Gonzalez and Leanardo all they could handle on five to a half-dozen corner and/or free kicks. LA escaped with a 3-1 win in the end, but the thing most worth noting is how much the score could have moved going in either direction: LA escaped on at least two occasions, which would have resulted in a tie, and Stefan Frei came up big enough for Seattle to keep out a couple great chances for LA, which prevented a blowout...

...and, in spite of all of that, it wasn't the most exciting of games.  LA won it comfortably with a combination of insouciant patience, star power on the field, and celebrity sightings off of it (Gordon Ramsey in David Beckham’s luxury suite!). Basically, Seattle's still in trouble...

Notes on LA
- Not unlike (what I heard about the Republican debate) the under-card talent carried the Galaxy today. Gyasi Zardes addressed every deficiency I've ever attributed to him today (e.g. heavy touch and dodgy decisions on passes), Juninho  ran the midfield like it was 2014, and Sebastian Lletget terrorized the opposition left like he's done all season.
- The (meaningful) workman-like stuff aside, the stars dazzled only in passing (as in, from time to time, not just by their passing). Keane and Giovani dos Santos combined neatly on a couple occasions, - most notably when Keane fed dos Santos for LA's third (links later) – but I detected something subtle in LA's overall approach, something that flirted with fire and/or over-confidence.
- Defensive man-of-the-match honors go to Robbie Rogers, who not only positively locked down his left side (the opener excepted), but also followed a play to clear a ball of the line.
- Bottom line, for all their stars, LA's role players tend to come up huge. Whether it's Bruce Arena's coaching or savvy scouting, this is the secret to LA's success - the fielding of solid starting elevens.

Notes on Seattle
- It's easy to forget, sometimes, just how big Seattle is as a team. Just with Chad Marshall, Zac Scott and Andy Rose, they have size on set-pieces that a lot of teams rightly envy. And I'm sure I'm missing someone...the commentators made a lot of the advantage, even if it wasn't enough today. That won't always be the case, either.
- For me, Seattle's best player today was Erik Friberg. His energy was excellent, for starters – one would think he's playing for a contract like that – but most of the purpose and pace to the Sounders attack started and continued through him. He didn't get much help, sadly.
- Where it stopped? Lamar Neagle. It's official, the kid's having a bad year. Between Leanardo picking the ball out of his spokes and him being half a step off or behind, Neagle posed little to no threat all game long. Much like he has all season. This is a big, big reason for Seattle's inability to climb out of the slump.
- To their credit, though, Seattle's "Accidental B-Team" put in as good a shift as I've caught since the big absences hit. Because someone else pointed this out to me (can't remember who), I can't take credit, but a surprising amount of Seattle's offense passes through Tyrone Mears.