FC Dallas vs St Louis City – game info and lineup prediction

13th in the West FC Dallas (14 points, 3-8-5) hosts 11th in the West St Louis City (18 points, 3-4-9) at 7:30 pm at Toyota Stadium.

This being a home game against a team near FCD in the standings, the expectation should be a win.

Broadcast Info

TV: MLS Season Pass.
Apple TV English: Tyler Terens, Kyndra de St Aubin
Apple TV Spanish: Raul Guzman, Carlos Ruiz

English Radio: 1190 am and the FC Dallas App.  Owen Newkirk and Steve Davis are on the call. Pregame at 7 pm with Sam Hale.

Spanish Radio:  FC Dallas app with Carlos Alvarado and Rafa Calderon.

MLS Injury/Player Availability Report

FC Dallas 

OUT: Geovane Jesus (knee)
OUT: Paxton Pomykal (knee)
OUT: Alan Velasco (knee)

St Louis City

OUT: Rasmus Alm (Knee)
OUT: Tomáš Ostrák (Ankle)

Discipline Report

Suspended
Chris Durkin (STL)

Suspended on Next Yellow
DAL: Paul Arriola, Liam Fraser
STL: Tim Parker, Célio Pompeu, Tomas Totland

FCD Lineup Prediction

Coach Peter Luccin – man that feels weird – will be picking his first team. But to me, he’s a blank slate as a head coach. I’ve never seen him coach a team and know nothing of his preferred tactics and shape.

So here are some factors I used to put together a prediction on what Luccin might do.

1. The emphasis with the coaching change is goals, creating chances, and increasing xG.
2. Coach Luccin will almost certainly look to do something different than what came before.
3. I think this team will be better in a back four.
4. From some googling, I learned the coaches Luccin mentioned as big influences (Carlos Bianchi & Rolland Courbis) both prefer the 4-3-3, more often than not the 4-2-1-3 version – a double pivot.
5. Most new coaches will give some benefit of the doubt to vets and the highest-paid players before benching those guys for kids. It’s hard to get a guy on board if you bench him day one.
6. Yet, the club DNA and “play the kids” will be important… eventually.
7. Luccin was a gritty, hard-hitting, high work-rate, and effort player who played at the highest levels there are in soccer.

So here’s my guess for Luccin’s first XI of his MLS head coach career. It’s not particularly radical and mostly relies on the formation change.

Double pivot 4-2-3-1. I think the front four are obvious. Sebastian Lletget in midfield gives the team more creativity, experience, and linking play than Liam Fraser or Patrickson Delgado.

I picked Sam Junqua at left back as I think Junqua brings more offense than Marco Farfan. Herbert Endeley is very offensive as well and he’ll get a shot eventually, just maybe not yet. So it’s Ema Twumasi.

Myself? I would put Junqua at left center back for his passing with Ibeagha on the bench, but I didn’t calculate that as being something Luccin would do in game one.

I could easily be very wrong about all of this.

Bench Prediction
Jimmy Maurer
Omar Gonzalez
Patrickson Delgado
Liam Fraser
Tsiki Ntsabeleng
Marco Farfan
Dante Sealy
Herbert Endeley
Logan Farrington

MLS Kit Assignments

Officials

REFEREE: Jon Freemon
ASSISTANT REFEREES: Brian Dunn, Diego Blas
4TH OFFICIAL: Gerald Flores
VAR: Sorin Stoica, Joshua Patlak

More Game Info

• FCD record: 3-8-5 (14 points, 13th in West)
• STL record: 3-4-9 (18 points, 11th in West)
• FCD vs. STL all-time: 1-1-1 (3 goals scored, 2 goals conceded)
• FCD vs. STL home: 1-0-0 (2 goals scored, 0 goals conceded)

Dallas is 2-6-0 in games decided by one goal.

FCD is 1-7-2 when conceding first.

11 of 17 Dallas goals have been scored in the second half.

18 FCD players have combined to miss 71 games.

FC Dallas had a record of 0-4-1 when trailing at halftime.

Dallas is now 3-3-3 in its last seven matches across all competitions.

Dallas has zero goals scored by substitutes this season.

Petar Musa ranks 24th across MLS in xG (5.58) and the highest on FC Dallas.

Maarten Paes ranks second overall in MLS in saves made with 68.

Sam Junqua has covered 107.80 miles (173.50 Km), the most by an FC Dallas player this season. He ranks 24th across MLS.

Ema Twumasi reached the top speed of 21.93 MPH (35.29 Km), the fastest by an FC Dallas player, and is the 22nd fastest in MLS.

FC Dallas is 3-2-2 at home this season, 3-1-2 vs. the west, and 0-1-0 vs. the east.

St Louis City has played 50 games earning 74 points. That ranks 5th in MLS all-time for points in the first 50 games.

St. Louis is 0-2-5 on the road this season.

SLC’s 13 away goals are tied for fifth most in the league with the team averaging close to two goals (1.86 per road match).

Peter Luccin

So it turns out we’ve all been saying his name wrong for a decade.