Big D Weekly - November 20
Big D Weekly - November 20
We're fully embracing the offseason mode.
It is Thanksgiving week here in America. As much as I want to see time slow down a bit so we can enjoy the holiday, I am grateful for the extra time to go through some offseason-related material with you all.
As you all may have seen over the last week, I’ve started going through the FC Dallas roster with some player recaps on the year. So far, I’ve discussed keeper Jimmy Maurer, winger Jader Obrian, and midfielders Facundo Quignon, Liam Fraser and Asier Illarramendi. I’ll continue to knock out more of the roster this week and into December1.
The big thing we’re all waiting on at the moment is the end-of-year roster moves by the club. Several teams have already revealed their roster moves, but I anticipate FC Dallas to do theirs sometime after the Thanksgiving holiday.
Until then, I plan on continuing the offseason discussion forward here. Later today, I have a post about the different positions I would like to see upgraded or added to this winter.
Given the spirit of the week, I want to thank the support of the paid subscribers funding Big D Soccer this year. I do want to make as much available to those who don’t pay or can’t afford to pay next year. But if you want everything, including that roster position piece, later today, this is a great time to upgrade to a paid subscription. I’ve got a button below to get you 50% off any plan (monthly or yearly) that will be good through the end of the month.
Again, thank you all for supporting Big D Soccer this year. Now let’s get into some updates on FC Dallas and from around MLS.
🔥 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:
Five things to watch for with FC Dallas in 2024 (Dallas Morning News)
FC Dallas 2023 season grades: Defense (Dallas Sports Nation)
FC Dallas bids farewell to Marco Ferruzzi (FCDallas.com)
What the 2023 season meant for FC Dallas (MLSSoccer.com)
📋 From Around MLS
As I mentioned above, several MLS clubs have already revealed their roster moves for the end of the year. Some clubs had some surprising moves, others, not so much. Down in Austin, the Verde shed a ton of salary from their roster. Atlanta also shed plenty of salary and is in discussions with Miles Robinson to return. But for now, it does appear that Thiago Almada is sticking around for at least the first part of 2024.
Colorado has figured out who will lead their team in 2024 by announcing Chris Armas as their 10th manager on Friday. Again, with Colorado, until their owners finally spend on this team, the manager won’t really matter all that much. Armas is still a bit of surprise pick since his time in NY and Toronto wasn’t all that great.
The league’s website had a question for each team that got eliminated from the playoffs, including FC Dallas last week. Naturally, the question on FCD centered around the consistency in the attack. With Alan Velasco out for the majority of 2024, FC Dallas has to figure out who can help Jesus Ferreira.
Did the new MLS playoff format work? While MLS and Apple seem to think it did, I’m still leaning on the fence that it was more complicated than it needed to be. Folks like us here in Dallas and elsewhere were probably happy to have at least one home game, but too many times in the first game of Round One, we saw teams go down early and pack it in because they knew there was another game coming up in the series.
That’s it for this week’s newsletter. Thank you all for subscribing (and if you aren’t subscribed, just hit that button below and get signed up now)!
A little early programming note: I’ll be out of the country next month for Christmas, so some of the roster will be released during that time.