Varas at San Diego should also be in contention for COTY. LAFC and Vancouver are looking like favourites for the Cup. FCD have been on a 3W6D1L streak since switching to a back 3.
Quill has experimented a lot on formation. His current formation has provided a way to get both Farrington and Musa in the starting XI at the same time. Kamgungo at wing back has been another interesting experimen over the last couple of weeks. Left wingback. Shaq Moore has been good. Very quietly so as people stopped paying attention to Dallas. Would it shock me if he's at January camp? No. After Alex Freeman, that's a little wide open. Unless people think Nathan Harriel or somebody is clearly superior to Shaq Moore. Cappis is another to just keep a little bit of a side-eye on.
In case you ask "how dominant were they?" Match Statistics (United States vs. France) Possession: 51% vs. 49% Shots: 13 vs. 2 Shots on Goal: 7 vs. 2 Saves: 2 vs. 4 Corner Kicks: 8 vs. 1 Fouls: 7 vs. 8 Historically, the US has a good record against France in U20s but it has nearly always been a case of holding on for dear life defensively. This was a total shut down of France.
Dallas just won again. Like seriously, this has to be one of the most surprising late season surges I've seen from an MLS club. Trade everyone and sell everyone before the season, sign Lucho Acosta...............sell him mid-season..................and then go on a silly streak for no apparent reason. Shaq Moore was good again. Farrington was good, but didn't get on the scoresheet. I'm keeping an in-his-prime Chris Cappis. He went 90 and had an assist. Kamungo had an assist. He's been playing left wing-back in a 3-5-2. An interesting experiment. And just for good measure. Paxton Pomykal came on as a sub. Tip of the cap to former USMNTer Matt Hedges, who officially retired today. 5 caps with the USMNT from 2015 to 2017. 11 seasons349 appearances (most in club history)25 goals3x MLS All Star2x MLS Best XI2016 MLS Defender of the Year2016 MLS Supporters Shield Winner2016 Lamar Hunt US Open Cup Champion1 Matt Hedges. pic.twitter.com/EaaX5NOXoS— FC Dallas (@FCDallas) October 4, 2025
There's a possibility of us playing 3 at the back. Kamungo as an outside shot at LWB wouldn't be that surprising. We don't have many super athletic former winger guys like that. If Parades can't get healthy and play and Weah is needed at wing how far down would you go to find a superior player to Kamungo to back up Robinson? He's a completely different type of player to say Lund.
Was just thinking about Pomykal this week with the U20s beating France. He was so good in 2019. Sad that injuries derailed his career, I thought he was going far.
Yes, imagine having a healthy Pax and Reyna with the team right now. Both add a ton of what's needed. Pax played about 10 minutes and barely touched the ball but got fouled hard twice. You always can tell the best players by how much they get fouled. Unfortunately it also keeps a lot of them injured a lot.
I feel like barring injury the backup to Jedi and left wing spot is almost certainly going to Arfsten. Every coach has their guys and Arfsten seems to be one of Pochettino’s.
I'm not as certain and think it will depend a lot on how much 3CB vs 2CB the team plays and if he plays in the 2CB scheme can he defend well enough in these next windows.
Berhalter’s two golazos and inch-perfect set piece delivery can be found here: https://www.mlssoccer.com/schedule/scores#competition=all&club=all&date=2025-09-29 Vancouver won the Canadian title and is the current favorite to win the western conference. Berhalter is obviously one of the key guys. Will he finish the season as a best-11 player? Vancouver is killing it and he’s probably their best player.
Agree. if we have to replace Robinson, we (of course, by we, I mean Poch) have to seriously consider what attributes Robinson brings to the team and how we replace them. Obliviously there are the defensive and offensive attributes but the other overlying quality he has is the huge amount of ground he is able to cover. He makes the jobs of all the adjacent players somewhat easier because of that. He allows Pulisic, CM's, DM's, CB's to shift/cheat just a little bit on some of their duties. It allows the center backs (back three or back four...it doesnt' matter) to compress the space they need to cover just a little. He allows Pulilsic to focus more on offense, mids and dm's can compress their coverage or shift to the right just a bit. All of those small changes add up to a huge loss. I don't believe we have anyone that can do that, so his loss won't just require replacing him, but possibly adjusting duties for all around him slightly.
Could have been worse. Arfsten is pretty much on the level of most of our players not called CP or AR.
Not every wing back is going to come in and have a goal or assist every few games. Arfsten isn’t far from that. That’s pretty good.
If I was ranking probabilities of our players going to the WC where Pulisic would be #1, and the third keeper would be #26, Arfsten would be in top 20.
I feel a lot better about Arfsten as a wingback in a 3-4-2-1 than as a traditional left back in a back 4.
Arfsten is perfectly fine as a backup wingback. It remains to be seen how much he will be able to improve his effectiveness as a fullback, given C-bus mainly play a back-three.
I'm trying to remember if those were games the right back mostly stayed home. I think so but not certain. Hey the guy could end up being good defensively with more work but for the WC he doesn't have that much time. I do think that Poch will game plan for him if he is a left back in a four back set. If Jedi is injured none of our replacements can do what he can. Could switch Dest and then right back backup becomes the next guy up.
I think initially in the Gold Cup yes it was a stay at home right back but there also was some experimenting with having one of the center mids drop back instead.