Welcome home FC Dallas fans, welcome home.
After nine matches on the road (or 12 if you want to count those three Leagues Cup matches), spanning over two months, three timezones, and enough frequent flyer miles to last several years, FC Dallas is back at Toyota Stadium. And this home stand, four out of the next five matches in Frisco, isn’t just a scheduling quirk. It’s an excellent opportunity to separate themselves in the Western Conference playoff race with 12 games remaining. The road trip produced good enough results to keep Dallas in the mix. Now it’s time to do what should be easier: win at home.
Standing in the way first, on Saturday is Sporting Kansas City. The old MLS rivals have been a mess since the World Cup break, going 1-5-0 in their last six games with red cards, scoring droughts, and a roster overhaul that looks intriguing on paper even if it hasn’t produced any points. This is a winnable home game against a wounded opponent, with big stakes for Dallas on both ends of the field.
Here is what I’ll be watching on Saturday.
Fix the Defense: Eleven Goals in Three Games Is Not a Vibe
Let’s not bury the lead here: FC Dallas has conceded 11 goals in their last three games. That’s not a bad run but it is a pattern that needs addressing before it becomes a full-blown identity crisis.
The road trip had its defensive highlights, with shutouts in LA and solid gritty performances in Austin. But the cumulative numbers in recent weeks have been rather ugly. The 4-3 win over Real Salt Lake was thrilling, but was also a match where Dallas gave up three goals before pulling it out near the end of the match.
The good news is that Saturday’s opponent is one of the most toothless offenses in MLS right now. SKC has gone over 300 minutes without scoring a goal, their longest scoring drought in league play this year. This is the ideal matchup to get a defensive reset for Dallas before the schedule tightens up in the final weeks of the regular season. A clean sheet on Saturday can give this group a reset after leaking goals for the last couple of weeks. Dallas needs to get organized, stay compact, and make SKC prove they can actually score before worrying about anything else.
Big D Soccer gives you the why — the tactical breakdowns, the honest assessments, the context that actually helps you understand what you watched on Saturday night.
If you're serious about this club, you should be reading all of it.
Musa Is Two Goals From History
Here’s the number that matters most to me this weekend: two. That’s the distance for Petar Musa in two different categories. One, the MLS Golden Boot race. And two, the club’s all-time regular season scoring mark.
Musa has already matched the all-time mark once since joining FC Dallas with 18 goals in a single season, joining Jason Kreis (’99), Kenny Cooper (‘08), and Jesus Ferreira (‘22) as the only players to score 18 goals in a single season. With 12 games to go, he’s got a shot not only to tie it but to absolutely smash the record. Goal 19 would make him the most prolific single-season scorer in club history.
On the Golden Boot side of things, Musa was passed last weekend by a four-goal effort by Lionel Messi. He sits two goals back of the Argentine legend and could continue to make that race a very interesting thing if he can continue keeping pace.
Given that Dallas has a home-heavy schedule in their final 12 games, this is the perfect time for Musa to make history again and again.