2023 FC Dallas Player Recaps: Sam Junqua
2023 FC Dallas Player Recaps: Sam Junqua
Houston's loss was FC Dallas' gain.
Our 2023 FC Dallas player recaps continue with defender and overall utility man Sam Junqua.
FC Dallas added Junqua at the beginning of the 2023 regular season in a deal with the Houston Dynamo, who traded away his MLS player rights. Junqua was expected to come in and be depth behind fullback Marco Farfan but proved to be valuable anywhere head coach Nico Estevez put him on the field.
Stat breakdown
The 27-year old scored two goals in 2023, and somehow his non-penalty goal percentile is insanely high. But that isn’t the main point of discussing Junqua’s stats from 2023. What I liked most about his play on the field was how good he was at advancing the ball into the attack and being part of said attack. Those two goals were evidence of that, but if you watched him in some of those games toward the end of the season when he started over Farfan, it was clear he belonged on the field.
Highlight
His two goals were scored back in the summer, and both may have been some of the best goals from the entire 2023 season.
And then this one:
Will he be back in 2024?
Man, I truly hope so. He’s got incredible value, and the fact that the Dynamo were willing to dump him for next to nothing makes his emergence as a utility man even better. I’ve argued that he was the best signing in 2023 by the club and I still stand by that today1.
Final thoughts
I remember asking Estevez around the end of May or early June about how he thought Junqua was coming along and he reminded me of the fact that Junqua didn’t compete in the club’s preseason camp. So, to come in when he did, find a place within the roster and then flourish says a lot about him. I think it could be said that he is a 2.0 version of Ryan Hollingshead now, as he’s a good locker room guy, and you can put him almost anywhere on the field, and he’ll exceed.
Yes, this includes Asier Illarramendi. The difference between the two is that Junqua helped get the club through those rough, injury-filled months in the late spring/early summer.