Now that the Wild Card round is in the books for the MLS Cup Playoffs, the bracket feels more complete.
FC Dallas is getting ready to take on the Vancouver Whitecaps in their Best-of-Three series starting this weekend. And while there has been a lot of talk about how these playoffs may go across the league, I felt like it was a good time to discuss some reasons to believe in this group as they begin their first playoff run in two years.
Reasons to believe
Let’s start with reasons I think FC Dallas at least has a chance to win this thing:
The current form can't be ignored
FC Dallas wrapped up its 2025 season with one loss in the last ten games, which also included a eight-game unbeaten streak between August 9 and October 11.
Yes, the one loss in this stretch came on the road against one of the worst teams this season, the LA Galaxy. Still, they've found ways to do it without a star number 10.
Let's continue to beat this drum a little bit more, shall we? Since FC Dallas sold Lucho Acosta, they have been impressive. In 24 games with Acosta, FC Dallas averaged just 1.04 points per game and were sitting in 13th place before the deal was made to move on from him. Since Acosta's transfer to Brazil, Dallas averaged 1.9 points per game, more than all but three other teams in MLS over that same stretch.
We've seen this before in the playoffs. A team starts off slow, or struggles midway through the year, only to get hot at the right moment before the playoffs begin. That used to be Seattle's thing in their playoff runs. Last year, the New York Red Bulls rode some nice form into the playoffs before surprising everyone in their path before losing MLS Cup to the Galaxy.
The form is there for this club to do something special in these playoffs.