Game: FC Dallas vs Orlando City SC Date: Saturday, October 6th Time: 7:00 PM [CST] Location: Toyota Stadium, Frisco, Texas, United States of America Weather Forecast: Thunderstorms; H 84, L 72 Competition: Major League Soccer Last 5 For Opponent: D-L-L-D-L Live TV: KTXA-21 [DFW] | KAMR-4.2 [Amarillo] | KMYL-22.2 [Lubbock] | KFXK-51.2 [Tyler] | KFDX-28.2 (KJBO) [Wichita Falls] | WRDQ-21 [Orlando] | YouTube [Orlando] | ESPN+ [Out of Market] Radio: FCDallas.com/radio [English] | KFLC 1270 AM La Voz del Pueblo [Spanish] Orlando hasn't won a game since July 14 vs Toronto. Orlando hasn't won an away game since April 29 (Colorado). Need a confidence boosting offensive display please.
We should throttle these guys, but I'm just hoping for a performance significantly better than any game we've played against San Jose.
Especially at home we have trouble with teams we "should" beat up on. probably because they play to counter which means FCD has to do something they're not used to doing. Control the ball and score against a bunker.
Let's look at our home record this season (MLS only)... RSL D 1-1 Seattle W 3-0 Portland D 1-1 Colorado D 1-1 Philly W 2-0 LA W 3-2 Vancouver D 2-2 LAFC W 2-1 Montreal W 2-0 Atlanta W 3-2 Chicago W 3-0 San Jose L 3-1 Minnesota W 2-0 Houston W 4-2 I've highlighted the 2 glaring results that should have been much better but other than that, I can only bitch about the Portland (based on form at the time) and Vancouver results as dropped points. The RSL game is normally much better but RSL played well that night and deserved the draw, if not more.
I was thinking more on the Atlanta, LAFC wins that were somewhat unexpected while losing to a terrible SJ team. Not sure what happens now as OP had finally settled on a starting unit and they were grinding results and it looked like it may have worked in the playoffs. Now he has to go back to the drawing board.
Badji honestly looks more useless than Colman. Cristian may have been a zero in front of goal for the most part, but he at least offered more aggression, intensity, won most of his duels in the air, and was more in sync with his teammates with his movements. Badji barely offers much in any of these areas. We really do have a striker issue that badly needs addressing during the offseason. The balance is looking better otherwise though. Very good games from Gruezo and Ulloa in the middle, Mosquera is in hot form, and Jesse looked solid in goal too. 3 clean sheets in the last 4 games now. Hopefully the team can continue on this note going into the playoffs, not too long to go now. Crazy that this could end up being FCD's best season ever statistically even though it hasn't felt like it at any point this year. Just never feels like we saw this team at full gear honestly. 60+ points without a single player in double digit for goals sounds impossible, but this team might be about to make that a reality. The only thing more insane would be them winning the MLS Cup now.
Yeah, this game was really a microcosm of our season so far. I watched the entire first half (my first game back at Toyota in 7 weeks, btw) frustrated as hell, wondering just how we ever sustained 1st place for so long. Then Mosquera comes on and everything changed. Pareja really has made diamonds out of coal over the years and should be showered with praise for it. Despite the results and our overall form this season, I still hate the lineup he keeps trying to shoehorn out there. Maxi as the deep "playmaker" just doesn't work. No real striker on this team is so annoying too. I feel like we've gone through multiple offseasons saying the same thing, "man this team is great. All we need is a decent striker and we would run this league!" and yet we're still here with nothing. I honestly have no idea what to expect in this year's playoffs. The only thing that gives me a lot more hope is that we seem to know how to grind out results a lot better than years past. I don't see us going anywhere in the West and dropping a deuce in the first leg of a series.
At the point Mosquera went in for Aranguiz, I was thinking Aranguiz was just finding his role and contributing. I was disappointed in the sub. Then Mosquera scored. Chalk up another for El Profe and his substitution magic. How about Mosquera as striker? How many of our other players would have tried to first time the ball that Mosquera settled before scoring? I've seen no stats, but it seems like Mosquera is scoring a high percentage of his chances, at least higher than his teammates. A big difference between this game and the SJ home failure was Jesse keeping us in the game when we played 20 minutes of crap in the first half. He's my MOTM for this one.
everyone needs to stop overthinking this and just go with Pareja. He knows this team's limitations better than you - and it starts and end with a lack of #9. He's forced to play Urruti as this "9.5" spot and is the energy force that powers this grid it out style. Glad to read that Bobby Warshaw has hopped on this line of thinking as well. For all of you wondering why Oscar hadn't been playing Pablo, Saturday night was your answer. He doesn't have a formation that works to both include Pablo, and at the same time put the other "best parts" on the field. The "false wing" concept was rather limp with Mauro and was again with Pablo. Just accept the lack of attractiveness to the system and enjoy the "Grind & Fly" as your Futbol Club Dallas works their way, one game at a time, through the playoffs. At this point the odds of them winning MLS Cup 2018 is about as 50/50 as it gets.
I agree with the grind and fly but Colman was adding a lot of grind at forward that no one else has (unless Tesho could kind of do it?). So we have an abundance of wingers that could possibly be better than Badgi. Lamah, Barrios and Mosquera "might" be better. Also there is the looming presence of Ferreira. He at least harrasses defenders from what I've seen. Awful young but tat would switch forward from grind to grind, press and fly.
Colman wasn't doing much of anything except running around. Effort, for effort's sake, is nice but unless it converted into possession or opportunities, it's a lot of meaningless running around. Colman's big upside, as I saw trotted out on several reviews, was his "winning of aerial balls". Well, that's nice, but for example, in his last game he won 17 of these. Did you know though, of the 17 only FOUR actually then resulted in retained possession? 13 of them gave the ball back to the opponent. Its tough he's hurt and will never play for Dallas again, sad end to an odd story and not really kind to him personally. That said, Pareja isn't missing much with this injury on the field simply because CC was producing next to nothing and almost without exception when he did find himself with a chance - he blew it. Is Badji or Tesho better? No. But that's my original point to all of this. FCD is stuck simply because they have not had a 9. Not with CC or without him.
So my question is if those two aren't better is Barrios, Mosquera, Lamah or Ferreira better or a platoon picking one specifically for the opposing team that best fits or do we just slog through with Badji? Someday we will look back at these four years and wonder how many MLS Cups we might have won with a real #9.