In just the fifth game of the season, FC Dallas is facing a huge moment in their season as they get set to travel down I-35 for their first matchup against Austin FC of 2024. I don’t normally love doing predictions. Others who cover the team in far more depth and have more experience, like the amazing Buzz Carrick at 3rd Degree, do it far better than me. But FC Dallas feels like they are at a crossroads and a huge moment in their season, despite it only being the fifth game of the year. At this point, it is obvious what Dallas needs to do to pick up a result in Austin compared to previous perf ..read more

Dallas has dropped back-to-back games to Montreal and New York Red Bulls and comes back home to face Vancouver in desperate need of three points. This week, let’s look at three things the Burn must improve if they want to pick up three points against the Whitecaps. More crosses The wingback play of this team has become an almost tiring talking point, but as long as Nico Estevez and his staff continue to persist with the 3-4-2-1, it will continue to be a worthy point. Much has been discussed about the defensive positioning of the wingbacks and the issues they’ve had on that side of the ball, bu ..read more

FC Dallas lost for the first time in the 2024 season, falling 2-1 at home to CF Montreal last Saturday. Last week, we overreacted to a positive result; this week, let’s flip the script and overreact negatively to the Burn’s first loss of the season. Without Illarra, this team will struggle To be clear, against Montreal, Dallas were outplayed for basically the entire game, including the first half, where Asier Illarramendi was on the pitch. But in the second half, when he went off with an injury, Dallas seemed to struggle to find any kind of identity. Illarra has a level of class on the ball an ..read more

FC Dallas kicked off the 2024 season in style with a dramatic late winner to claim a 2-1 victory over San Jose. This week, let’s run a little wild and overreact to the season opening win. Asier Illarramendi is an MLS Best XI midfielder The veteran Basque midfielder has been nothing but class since joining Dallas last summer and that continued into the first game of the season, in which he put on a man of the match performance, scoring his first MLS goal that ended up going up for MLS Goal of the Week. His statline underscores his quality: 90 touches, 89% passing, 3 chances created, 13 passes i ..read more

After weeks of rumors and reports, FC Dallas finalized the signing of Croatian forward Petar Musa on February 1st, completing a club record transaction for the Burn. This week, let’s look at what this signing means for FCD going forward. Let’s get this out of the way first, this is the biggest signing in the history of the club. Petar Musa isn’t the highest profile player to ever put on an FC Dallas or Dallas Burn jersey, that title will probably always belong to the legendary Hugo Sanchez who was a part of the Burn’s inaugural season, but Musa is an utterly massive signing. The reported fee o ..read more

The Burn returned to the Cotton Bowl for their first preseason test of 2024, with Lionel Messi and Inter Miami bringing their world tour to Dallas. Let’s look at three takeaways from FCD’s preseason opening victory. 1) The 3-4-3 For most of Nico Estevez’s tenure as manager, FC Dallas has played in a 4-3-3, with occasional shifts to a 4-4-2 or 3-4-3, mostly during games, with the back 3 typically looking more like a back 5 and used to help close out games that Dallas is leading late. But in this game, Dallas played out of the 3-4-3 for the entire game, sticking with it even after multiple round ..read more

With the turn of the calendar over to a new year, we are just a few short weeks away from the start of MLS training camps. There is still plenty of offseason left to go, but this week we’ll look at what FC Dallas has done so far in acquiring players ahead of the 2024 season. Enes Sali The first signing of the offseason was one that was originally rumored during the season itself, with FCD signing the Romanian international shortly after the season ended. Sali is just 17 years old but already has well over 50 professional appearances in Romania under his belt. Born in Canada, he spent time in B ..read more

The 2024 MLS schedule was released on Wednesday, setting the stage for the upcoming season. This week, let’s look at a few things that stick out in FCD’s 2024 slate of games. No Messi this year Sorry to all the folks counting on another trip to Frisco for Lionel Messi, not happening this year. With the limited cross-conference schedule, Messi and Miami will only travel to three western conference teams in 2024 – LA Galaxy, Sporting KC and Vancouver. There’s still some limited hope for a rematch in Leagues Cup or the Open Cup (well, maybe we’ll see about that…) or maybe an MLS Cup Final but not ..read more

The MLS offseason is in full swing and the league has released the lists of players eligible for free agency and the upcoming re-entry drafts. This week, let’s look at five players FC Dallas should look at going after on these lists. Teenage Hadebe, Center Back – Re-Entry Draft Yes, a former Houston player. Hadebe was deemed surplus to requirements by Ben Olsen after missing a chunk of 2023 due to injury and losing his starting job in Houston. The negatives: he’s on a high salary, over $1.3 million guaranteed in 2023, so there’s either a DP spot or a significant buy down needed there and he ta ..read more

FC Dallas published their year end roster decisions on Thursday. This week, I’ll share some thoughts on those decisions and how the team is shaping up for 2024. Options Exercised: Asier Illaramendi, Liam Fraser, Sam Junqua, Tsiki Ntsabeleng, Herbert Endeley Three pretty obvious decisions here along with a couple of unexpected but pleasant surprises. The class that Illarra showed in his less than half a season with the club made him the most obvious decision of all the contract options. He will be a core part of the team in 2024. Liam Fraser and Sam Junqua both provide dependable and quality de ..read more