Season Previews: Sporting KC, Vancouver, Dallas

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Punny Titles Are For Clubs That Don’t Hire Gavin Wilkinson

A 2024 Sporting Kansas City preview can only begin with the acknowledgement of an ending. Two club legends, Graham Zusi and Roger Espinoza, won’t be lacing up their blue boots this season. One of those two has been in a Sporting KC jersey every year since 2008. The duo combined for nearly 700 games played and oversaw the collection of four trophies. They will be sorely missed by the fans and in the clubhouse. The fact that Zusi spent his entire 15-year career with one club is just a marvelous feat. What a career.

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2023 Season Previews: Seattle Sounders, FC Dallas, Los Angeles FC

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“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” - Brian Schmetzer, presumably.

I’m not here to be all sunshine and roses. Last year was bad. But, also, it was awesome. Being the first MLS team to win the CONCACAF Champions League has come with a purse bulging with bragging rights. It’s not a small thing. It was a remarkable accomplishment.

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2020 Season Preview: FC Dallas

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2020 Season Preview: FC Dallas

For FC Dallas and their fans, the 2020 season feels like sophomore year in college. You’ve settled in to your new digs, figured out how to get the best class schedule, have your core group of friends, and you know the best spots to get a cheap slice of pizza at 1 a.m. After turning over a good chunk of the roster from 2018 and installing a new coach in Luchi Gonzalez, just about everything was new in 2019. For 2020 Luchi’s still running the show, and aside from the departure of Dominque Badji, the roster is mostly intact from the end of 2019 as this team heads into Gonzalez’ sophomore year in charge. The club and the fans know what to expect for the upcoming season.

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Offseason Outlook: FC Dallas

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Offseason Outlook: FC Dallas

For better and for worse, FC Dallas is in the tween years with their current squad and head coach. First year head coach Luchi Gonzalez was very adamant about his team playing a certain style and cemented an identity in the team that the players embraced. It did not matter who they were playing or where the game was being held, Dallas was going to line up the same way (hybrid 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1) and were encouraged to play out of the back.

At times they were brilliant and managed sequences of 40+ passes before the opponent could even get close to the ball, but there were also moments of awkwardness when pressed out of their comfort zone and they lacked ideas of how to get the ball out or how to move forward. Just like a prepubescent kid, they occasionally appeared uncomfortable and completely unsure of themselves.

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FC Dallas: Postseason Preview

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FC Dallas: Postseason Preview

2019 Review

FC Dallas were expected by many to miss the playoffs in 2019. Following a disappointing early playoff exit in 2018 Dallas came into the season with a new coach and one of the youngest teams in the league. That mostly suggested it should have been a rebuilding year. It wasn’t, though. Luchi Gonzalez got the team playing attractive-ish, solid soccer right out of the gate. They lost just two of their first nine games. The season after that was a little more uneven, but on the whole Gonzalez managed to develop the team’s youth while implementing a fun, possession-oriented, high-pressing style of soccer that has, aside from in front of goal, been pretty effective.

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Hiding Behind Possession: FC Dallas' Youth Experiment

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For years, FC Dallas has been lauded for having one of -- if not the best, Academy programs in the United States. Dallas has signed the most Homegrown players in the league history (25), with no slowing down in sight. Despite having such a prolific Academy, it wasn’t until recent years that the club started taking full advantage of this system. And when former Academy Director Luchi Gonzalez took over as the head coach,  it was finally the go-time for the entire “Play Your Kids” movement. Part of that was by design; who else would know the former Academy players better than Luchi? Part of it was also timing; most of the Academy graduates had spent a significant amount of their formative soccer development years in the Dallas Academy and were ready to make the jump. With Gonzalez at the reign, it only made sense to usher in a youth movement.

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FC Dallas 2019 Season Preview

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FC Dallas 2019 Season Preview

The 2018 season for FC Dallas feels like a lifetime ago, thanks in large part to massive changes the club undergone during the offseason. The face and heartbeat of the club, Oscar Pareja, left for a new challenge and after his departure the roster and coaching staff were overhauled in a matter of weeks. With the change comes a new wind of hope and optimism, especially when you hear the way newly minted head coach and former FCD Academy Director Luchi Gonzalez speaks so eloquently about his vision for Dallas in 2019, and how the newly formed North Texas Soccer Club will help bridge more FCD players from the Academy and the first team.

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Postseason Preview: FC Dallas

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Dallas have stabilized from last season’s epic collapse, enough to challenge for the top of the Western Conference and position themselves well in a wide open landscape. They would have been in in pole position for first-place had they not lost 3-0 to Sporting KC in Week 33.  

New contributors have replaced old stalwarts, part of an on-the-fly rebuild initiated by their 2017 fall from grace. Mauro Diaz and Kellyn Acosta were sent away this summer. Walker Zimmerman was traded in the offseason. Players like Reggie Cannon, Victor Ulloa and Santiago Mosquera carved out regular roles over phased-out veterans.

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