How FC Dallas expects to handle back-to-back rivalry games
The schedule makers made it kind of weird for the Texas teams in 2024.
There really is no getting around it: The schedule for the 2024 Copa Tejas is weird for FC Dallas, Austin FC and the Houston Dynamo. The three sides have already played one another once this season, with games coming in late March and early April for the first set of matches before doing it again this week and next.
Instead of spacing out rivalry games throughout the season, FC Dallas will square off with Austin FC this weekend before traveling down I-45 to face the Dynamo next weekend.
“It would also be nice for fans and everyone if the games were a little bit more spread out, right? Because you have back-to-back games, and sometimes I feel like it is difficult to get that assignment and motivation and everything, but for us, it is important,” said FC Dallas head coach Nico Estevez during his weekly press conference. “You know, we played them, and what the schedule said is we'll take it, and in it, they have some similarities but some other differences.“
Estevez’s club is coming off a Tuesday night US Open Cup win over USL Championship side Memphis 901. The Dallas manager explained that his team has to find the right balance of energy and emotions to play an Open Cup game followed by back-to-back Copa Tejas games and then another Open Cup game following their trip to Houston.
“It's really important to find a balance. For example, on Wednesday after the Cup game, we had a recovery session,” explained Estevez. We had the trainers here doing recovery stuff. We had some training with some of the guys who played less on Tuesday. We use in a lot of videos, we had a lot of individual meetings with players, prepping them for what is coming in, giving them clips from the opponent, giving them clips, from their selves and things that we are asking them to do. And I think this is how we manage the mental and physical side.”
FC Dallas hopes to get some revenge this weekend when they host Austin. Their last meeting at the end of March didn’t go well for Estevez’s side when they traveled south to the state capital as Austin came away with a 2-1 victory. Estevez wants his players to make the moments matter more on Saturday as they look to pick up another home win over their rivals.
“I was reviewing that game yesterday, and there are things that we did well there that didn’t help get the win. Those moments that we did well. It’s been games where we have been very aggressive on the attacking side, playing behind their backline and having control of the ball. We had good moments in transition and then on the defensive side. When we’ve been successful against them is when we have been able to be present, be aggressive and not let them play comfortably.”
FC Dallas can join Austin FC at the top of the Copa Tejas1 leaderboard with a win over its I-35 rival this Saturday (both would be at 2.0 PPG with two Copa Tejas wins and one loss).
Copa Tejas is the fan-driven, regular-season competition between Dallas, Austin and Houston. It's decided by whichever team earns the highest point per game (PPG) in matches against one another (three points for a win, one for a draw and zero for a loss).