120 Fahrenheit - Most popular for 2009
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"So, how do you think they did?" I can't tell you how many times I was asked that in the
aftermath of the MLS SuperDraft. It's the most frequently asked question for about a week from
fans, media, other teams, and even FCD staffers. So I'm going to kill a couple birds with one stone
here and evaluate the FCD haul.
One of the reasons frequently cited when speaking of the low FC Dallas attendance numbers is the
lack of media coverage of the team. I've always felt that was a chicken or the egg scenario as they
two things kind of feed each other. Unfortunately for FCD and their fans, things just got a whole
lot worse on that front.
The world of soccer fandom is divided into two groups (ok so it's a lot more than two groups, but
bear with me) those who think uniform numbers are important and those that do not. This piece is
not a judgment one way or another about which way you should fall, I just happen to be a person who
thinks the history and tradition of numbers matter.
This Combine Wrap up is a final review of each player at the MLS Combine. I divide them into five
categories for this exercise. 1. Can't Miss Prospects. 2. Should Do Well. 3. Projects with Hope. 4.
Has a Chance. 5. Slim to None. In each section I will list the players in alphabetical and they
will only include players who participated in the Combine.
We're at a funny time in American (and world?) media, where newspapers are dieing and
blogs/internet news sites are growing in popularity, if not profitability. As part of that movement
professional sports teams, and for that matter all other kinds of teams, are letting (making?)
their coaches and players blog in cyber space.
Day Two is kinda like Saturday at the Masters. Players stock can rise and fall dramatically.
Generally speaking the team play is better on the second day than on the first and that's true this
year as well, but we also see individual players come up and down.
FCD tied BK Haken yesterday with an early goal from Jeff Cunningham. While none of us saw the game
there are a few interesting things to be seen from the box score and PR release (which is down
below). Here's the team...
It's become quite the thing these days apparently to slam the MLS Combine and say it's useless.
(Funny how it it seem the combine is most frequently slammed by people that don't go to it?) The
latest to do so today is Steven Goff.
I have to say there wasn't a ton of entertainment in this game, except maybe for the scrum that
resulted from McCarty trading head buts with Freddy Thompson. FCD played almost a First XI in the
front rank. I'm ok with that as the team now has a week and a half off to come back fresh.
Defensively we saw a few guys get on the field that sorely need some PT.
With the end of the line in sight for FCD General Manager Michael Hitchcock, I thought I might
discuss ticket sales and customer service. It's not secret that FCD has lacked in that department
the last few years. One of the General Managers I respect most from the early days of MLS is the
ex-Fire Gm Peter Wilt.
It was requested by a reader I do a Q&A on 3rd Degree. It's kinda Ives' bit, but I figured why not.
So I posted a little blog note and got about 20 questions or so. Here are your answers.
Day Three at the MLS Combine always starts early, 9:15 AM this year. The idea is that coaches can
get out of town after the games. Although that never seems to happen. Most of them seem to sit
around Florida and do their final evaluation meetings for the SuperDraft then fly straight to the
draft site the next day.
When I sat down to do a Mock Draft last night I got one mostly done, then I realized how stupid the
whole thing was cause I was just guessing on pretty much the entire thing. Some years there's a
dead solid lock for #1, like Maurice Edu for example. This year that's not the case. Add to that
the willingness of the #1 team, Seattle, to trade out and combine it with trader Mo sitting at #2
and there is going to be come chaos this morning at the Draft.
Starting this weekend, FCD players will begin to report to Dallas for their spring training. Coach
Schellas Hyndman will begin the process of transforming this team into one he wants. At the end of
the last season 3rd Degree laid out the off season plan as we interpreted it from talking to the
gaffer.
FC Dallas is down in Florida and unfortunately 3rd Degree is not. That means we're going to have to
relay on the FCD PR machine to get information to answer some questions. With Roster Compliance Day
coming while FCD is in Brazil, the Red Stripes will make their cut downs after the team returns
from Florida.
1-0 over Houston to win two games in a row is big. Perhaps big is an under-sell, that's a massive,
massive victory. While not as pretty or exciting as the Kansas City 6-0 win, 1-0 over Houston is
probably much more important for the confidence and psyche. This win should do wonders for FCD over
the next stretch.
The expansion draft for the 2010 Philadelphia Union will almost certainly take place on the Friday
following MLS Cup. There will be a window that week to make trades then a freeze one day before the
expansion draft. Since the 2009 season is over for FCD it makes sense to now look at who might get
protected.
My gosh it's nice today. Beautiful in the morning and it might even hit 80. I love Dallas in the
"winter." This is a quick report on the first session this morning. There is a second
session at 6 PM and I'm sticking around to watch it. I found some internet at a local coffee shop
and figured I'd bang out a quick report.
FCD has developed a relationship over the last couple years with three college programs that they
seem to play every spring. SMU of course, Tulsa up the road a bit, and the Memphis Tigers. The
Memphis coach is Irish and that was the connection to Clarke and Morrow that got the series started
but I'm pleased to see that it's survived the coaching change here in Dallas.
Time is running out for FCD to make changes this spring. Ok, you got me. Technically it's not, FCD
can make changes for quite some time cause the spring window doesn't close till April 15th and they
can of course make trades for most of the season. But time is running out before the start of the
season.
Back in 1998 I ran a little bit on this site about a US States Cup Championship. The idea was that
each state in the US field a mini-national team and play a World Cup style States Cup. Since then
SBI has put out a Team New Jersey a few times and challenged each state to come up with a team.
Inspired by Ives and by some recent posts from FCD fan Cowtown, I decided to take a look at the
Republic of Texas team again.
It's time for the annual USA-Brazil Challenge series against Atletico Paranaense. As usual the
first leg is down in Brazil and FCD set up a vide feed. No David Ferreira by mutual agreement,
which sucks for us watching at home.
Thus ends the FCD series against TFC for the year. The Red Stripes own the tiebreaker in the
standings, if it comes to that, by winning the head to head series four points to none. Hard to
argue with the three points, although arguably FCD played better in the last two games on the road.
This game continues the unfortunate trend of poor home form.
After a couple weeks of not being able to see the FCD game live due to work, I managed to catch
this one in real time. Frankly when the season is this bad it can be hard to find good stuff to
say. So in an effort to be more positive I'm flipping the order of these pieces so I can finish
with what I did like.
Nice win. First FCD roach win, second FCD win, first Chicago loss, and first FCD shutout of the
season. It certainly makes for a lot of good comments and plenty of things to talk about. 70
degree's at game time. Wish I had been there.
This was a must win game, although let's be real - every home game is a must win game when you're
13th in the standings, but New York was decimated by injures and is behind FCD in points. They had
only scored one away goal all year. Even missing Cooper, this was a game for the taking. A loss in
this one would have been devastating.
I must admit this was a fun event, way out in the west Texas desert. Ok, not that far out, only a
five hour drive. Midland has this great little facility, Grande Communications Stadium. It would be
a perfect USL-1 or USL-2 stadium for soccer, except that it's field turf painted with football
lines.
People often ask me what I think of Schellas Hyndman, not as a man or human being of course, but as
a soccer coach. Frankly, I'm not really sure, there are some things I like a lot about him, and
some things that bug me quite a bit. There was a great finish to the season so I have hope for
2010, yet I still see some trouble signs.
And so it beings. Another season of the joy that is major professional soccer in the united
states. Today is the kick off scrimmage for the 2009 version of FC Dallas. The action takes place
in the main stadium at Pizza Hut Park. It's an opportunity to see some of the new faces, do some
evaluating, and for season ticket holders to pick out their seats.
It's game two of the spring and while you can certainly say 0-0 is a better results than 3-0, there
is still a long way to go. Houston remains one of the best teams in MLS with an intact system
they've run since the San Jose days. They just plug and play guys so even though they are missing 5
or 6 players they will can handle FCD, who is only missing three or four.
A few days ago I wrote out a discussion of some of the key questions for this week. Since then,
that same day actually, FCD had their first game down in Florida against Colorado and yesterday FCD
head man Schellas Hyndman answered some questions for various media. In that Q&A he gave us some
answers that will point us in certain directions.
FC Dallas got knocked off by Siera B side Parana down in Curitiba. Without any real reporters there
(sorry) we don't know a whole lot about what's going on with the team. There's no video a nor radio
to get info from either. (cross your fingers for a web feed of the CAP game) We're left trying to
dissect the box score and game story.
For most of this spring, I've been talking about the FC Dallas roster being out of balance. Even
before the Red Stripes hosed Jamie Watson I felt the team needed another striker, now I think they
need two. With the loss of Marcelo Saragosa for a month or more, the trade of Adrian Serioux, and
the poor FCD play in Brazil, FCD is in even more of a mess on defense.
Maybe winning is everything? I've been thinking about the bad attendance and I've been wanting to
try and place some blame. So to that end I did some number crunching. So here's a breakdown of each
MLS season, FCD's numbers, and where they finished in attendance and in the standings.
Let's face it, this is going to be a long year. FCD is firmly entrenched at the bottom of the
standings, and while there is some small hope, it's not likely at this point FCD will make the
playoffs. It's a 30 game season and FCD is almost to the halfway point with only 10 points. 40 is
the normal target to make the playoffs and the odds FCD can get 30 points in 17 games is slim.
FC Dallas has reached the midpoint of the season. That's 15 games in, 15 games left. Per
suggestion, we've added a tracker on the right for the 40 points (likely) needed for the playoffs.
Last week I wrote about what I thought had gone wrong with the season.
With training moved up and fairly short session today, it's not that hot by the time the session
ends. It is starting to get close though cause FCD came out 30 minutes late, which usually means
they had a video session to start the training. At least it gave me a chance to read my paper.
The inconsistency of this team is staggering, To go from some of the best soccer we've seen under
Hyndman to the some of the worst we've seen in franchise history in the space to two halves is
crazy enough. But throw in a team come to Jesus meeting this week and perhaps the biggest but
kicking in franchise history and it become a big min boggling.
This is another one of the perhaps hastily arranged college scrimmages that pass for reserve games
around these parts now that the reserve league is gone. It's quit toasty out today as my car says
101 on the way up. I'm sure its not that hot officially, but the sun is beating down and it's quite
uncomfortable.
Every season about this time I write a little piece about what I think the off-season will hold for
FC Dallas. Usually there are a great many questions that must be answered and a great many holes
that must be filled. Strangely, for a team that missed the playoffs, that's not really true for FC
Dallas.
