For the better part of the last three months, I’ve been pondering out loud that we haven’t truly seen the best FC Dallas starting XI out of manager Eric Quill.
We’ve seen snippets of it from time to time, or have been able to speculate about it.
A lot of that came down to the congested schedule between August and October. Those three months only saw a small number of weeks where the club only had a single game to deal with on the schedule. So, rotation was the name of the game to keep guys healthy and limit burning out key players.
By and large, it worked as FC Dallas secured a playoff spot with five games to go, the earliest they had been able to do that in club history.
As FC Dallas gets ready to host the Portland Timbers in a best-of-3 series in Round One of the MLS Cup Playoffs, we have to once again take a hard look at who should be the starting group in this series.
After the Decision Day lineup came out last weekend against the Colorado Rapids, I think we saw exactly what we should expect to see next week when the Playoffs begin.
FC Dallas should start Daniel in goal, a back three of Shaq Moore, Osaze Urhoghide and Sebastien Ibeagha, Bernard Kamungo and Herman Johansson as wing-backs, Ramiro and Kaick in the middle, and Joaquin Valiente, Daniel Job and Petar Musa up front.
Nothing here is cute or revolutionary. Quill is a guy that goes with what has been working and as long as he doesn’t overthink it, I think there shouldn’t be too much to expect here.
Starting XI
Formation: 3-4-3
Lineups
Here is a quick breakdown:
- Daniel: Playoffs belong to goalkeepers, and he's the one Dallas trusts. Just watch the save he made last week against Colorado on an offside play. That was Save of the Year material.
- Moore, Urhoghide, Ibeagha: Three center backs, three different jobs. All three cover a ton of ground and do an excellent job of limiting what teams can do against them in the air.
- Kamungo and Johansson: The engine room. They're wingers when Dallas has the ball and wing-backs when it doesn't, and the whole shape lives or dies on their legs.
- Ramiro and Kaick: The midfield pair that keeps the thing from turning into a track meet. Ramiro connects, Kaick continues to be the gnat that other teams hate dealing with.
- Valiente, Job, Musa: Musa’s 22 goals is the headline. Valiente is the assist leader and Job is the wildcard who gives the defense something to think about.
