Big D Weekly - July 29: FC Dallas still struggles away from home
Big D Weekly - July 29: FC Dallas still struggles away from home
Another road game that FC Dallas fails to show up for 90 minutes.
The first Monday during the Leagues Cup is here. The MLS regular season is on a break until late August as we get to watch the best of MLS take on the best of Liga MX.
Like it or not, the Leagues Cup is here—and it is likely to stay for the long haul.
FC Dallas didn’t fare well in their opening match of this year’s tournament. The team still cannot find a way to grind out a result away from home this year. Now, we shift to a ‘must-win’ game on Wednesday night at home against Liga MX side Juarez FC.
I’ll be upfront with you all: I’m not in love with this tournament yet. I wasn’t fully on board last year either, but the games at home, especially the Miami game, helped pique my interest a bit. I’m not feeling the same level of intrigue so far this year, and that was before FC Dallas lost in St. Louis on Saturday night.
Still, I don’t want to see FC Dallas completely crash out of this competition just yet, either. A loss or even a draw on Wednesday night against a team that they should be able to beat would make things very difficult for the club to advance to the Knockout Rounds.
I’ll dive more into Saturday’s loss and what we learned from it later today. Let’s first dive into the last few days from around MLS and FC Dallas.
🔥 More items from the blog
Other FCD-related recaps/updates from the week
Here are some other posts from the last few days that are worth a read:
Peter Luccin in charge: 10 things we’ve learned (Texas XI - Steve Davis)
Newcomers drive St. Louis past FC Dallas (Talkin’ Soccer)
St. Louis wastes no time with newcomers in win over Dallas (St. Louis Today)
Better late than never: Musa joins MLS All-Stars (FCDallas.com)
North Texas SC snaps losing streak, downs St. Louis CITY2 (FCDallas.com)
Maarten Paes can’t wait to represent Indonesia (MLSsoccer.com)
📋 From Around Leagues Cup
The first group games in this year’s tournament have already produced several interesting results. San Jose may have had the biggest shocker of all, downing Chivas at Levi Stadium in front of a massive crowd. Despite most folks picking against Austin FC in their tough group, the Verde surprised those folks with a big win over Pumas. New England rode their youth in a win over Mazatlan. Seattle comfortably took down Minnesota. LAFC lived up to the hype and took down Club Tijuana. And a Messi-less Miami started off their title defense with a simple win over Puebla.
The transfer window continues to see clubs from around MLS bring in new players. Minnesota signed a DP forward Kelvin Yeboah. SKC transferred Marinos Tzionis to a Serbian club. Miami continues to go back to South America to add players to its roster, this time with River Plate’s Hector Martinez. And San Diego (which is still building up to its expansion season next year) signed Paddy McNair.
During the MLS All-Star Game festivities, MLS commissioner Don Garber gave his usual remarks about the league's state. One of the usual talking points was league expansion. Garber stated that the league will pause expanding after next year (when San Diego joins), but if the right markets emerge, they’ll start up again. Basically, I take that to mean that if they can get to 32 (which I always believed was the magic number), they will.
Like Garber or not, he’s been apart of MLS for 25 years now. I still find that impressive.
Garber also discussed the Open Cup controversy. Yeah, he’s still having a hard time making that look better.
Lastly, a League Cup game between DC and Santos Laguna will have to be moved due to poor field conditions at Audi Field. That’s definitely a bad look for anyone with a soccer-specific stadium.