On Tuesday, FC Dallas president Dan Hunt and technical director Andre Zanotta got together with the media to discuss the end of the season and their upcoming offseason plans.
A fair amount of it centered on the disappointing regular season that the club finished and how the team plans to improve in the offseason.
Here are some highlights I took from today’s press conference.
Drew Epperley
Reflecting on the year…
Hunt: Obviously, I wish we weren't having this press conference right now, because that means we're not in the playoffs and not the season that we had hoped or expected to have. So disappointing from that standpoint, incredibly thankful for Peter (Luccin), the effort his staff put in at FC Dallas this year, taking over on an interim basis in June. I thought they did a nice job.
But as I reflect upon the season, we obviously had much higher aspirations than what we achieved this year. And look, if you had to boil it down, I think injuries is maybe one of the biggest reasons why. We spent a lot of time studying this, thinking about this, and when your Designated Players miss more than a season of games and double the league average, that's hard. That's difficult because those are the players that you're really counting on to help pick up points in those crucial matches. Then also injuries to Paxton Pomykal and Geovane (Jesus) not returning this season, those were gigantic blows to the club.
I think there's so many things to be optimistic about (Petar) Musa, for starters. Logan Farrington, what a wonderful draft pick. He continues this long lineage of great draft picks at this club. And I think we're rich at number nines, which is really a blessing for very good ones here at the club. And then, you know, the big move in the summer to bring Show in, also in kind of an emergency situation, given Liam Fraser’s injury and everything else.
