Game: FC Dallas vs Portland Timbers Date: Saturday, March 24th Time: 2:30 PM [CST] Location: Toyota Stadium, Frisco, Texas, United States of America Weather Forecast: Partly Cloudy; H 84, L 63 Competition: Major League Soccer Last 2 For Opponent: L-L Live TV: KSTR-49 UniMas | Univision Deportes | Twitter [Stream] Radio: KFLC 1270 AM La Voz del Pueblo [Spanish] Another struggler from the Pacific Northwest comes to town (hopefully) for an ass kicking. Weather should be perfect. Enjoy and...uh....#challengeall
Another win would be a huge confidence boost for this team. Benchmark for this game: don't get punched in the nuts.
A win would be doubly good as it might send Portland into a tailspin. Need to get points before going on the road also.
Looked lousy on TV too. Mosquera looked a little more aggressive than his last few appearances. Lamah, for all the goals he somehow scores is a turnover machine. I hate to say it but there is no real threat on the wings since Fabian left. Barrios is somewhat effective and is kind of fast but he isn’t beating anyone 1v1 from the looks of it. Other teams only have to focus on marking Díaz and Barrios and the FCD puzzle is solved. Maybe getting Acosta back will help some since he is more offensive minded than Jacori.
Barrios gets loose on the wing to cross to.... nobody. Much of our attack goes to the wing. Then what? There's nobody in the middle to be on the receiving end of a cross. Can we negotiate a deal before the games to exchange every 5 set pieces (corner kicks included) for a bag of popcorn and 5 goal kicks to our opponents? That would increase our offensive output on set pieces to a bag of popcorn or two. If my over-40 Division 3 team that never held a practice was as bad at set pieces as FCD is right now, I'd have been irritated. Professionals being this bad is incredible. Good tie for them. Bad tie for us against a winless cold weather team in the heat playing with their second string back line and down a man for the last 15 minutes.
I'd rather win, tie or lose with Pomykal in there learning and improving than Lamah or Mosquera who really don't even seem better now and surely wouldn't be better if the kid got a good run of games. He can dribble and shoot and passes better than either of those guys. Are we now one of the teams that gives veterans every chance to keep their jobs when a kid might be better? last year it was Grana / Cannon and this year Lamah / Mosquera / Pomykal.
We don't have a thread discussing the FCD Academy in this forum, or I would mention it there, but Pomykal played 90 minutes in the Dallas Cup against Arsenal this past weekend. He started off as a #10, but ended up playing the second half sitting just ahead of the back 4 with Thomas Roberts playing the #10 position. You know, Pomykal is a clean and tidy player, who doesn't give the ball away, makes simple passes and plays, and can take on a few players on a deep run. We saw some good stuff during his last minutes against Portland, where he zipped down the endline and waited for the foul. But I was disappointed at the lack of personality that he played with at the Dallas cup with the FC Dallas U19 team. He looked to have taken a knock and was noticeably hindered in the second half, so I hope the bye week helps him recover. Still, I really expected him to dominate at the U19 level, but the much younger Arsenal team really outclassed FCD at every position, including Pomykal. He was really outshone by 17 year old Trae Bailey Coyle.