If you want to talk final day drama and playoff success in Dallas soccer, few are better equipped for the discussion than Dax McCarty.
The 2006 draftee went the full 120 minutes in the Hoops’ 2010 MLS Cup defeat to Colorado before cementing a place on The List as FC Dallas inexplicably failed to protect the then-23-year-old starting midfielder in an upcoming expansion draft.
The number one pick in that draft found his way to the New York Red Bulls, pipping his former side to the Supporters’ Shield on goal difference after both teams won by a single goal to finish tied on 60 points in a nervy Decision Day.
Road Dawgs Ride Again
After 560 appearances in all competitions and 13 caps for the US Men’s National Team, McCarty went from player to analyst on MLS 360. As Dallas battled three other teams for the final two playoff spots in the West, and the added wrinkle that two of those games also featured the two teams seeking out first place in the conference, where better to judge the final day drama?
“I think anyone will tell you that you always prefer to be on the pitch for big moments and big games,” McCarty told 3rd Degree. “But as far as a good secondary outcome for decision day to be able to watch it as an analyst on MLS 360 where you just get such a fun sense of all the chaos that is happening at any given time. There’s no better place to be than analyzing it on MLS 360 like we were. It was fun. It had tension, it had drama. It was everything that it’s cracked up to be.”
FC Dallas provided the drama, as cameras cut to the San Diego players desperately waiting for updates on the field after their own win in Portland.
“I think the game played out a lot differently than a lot of us figured because it’s impossible to predict red cards and how much of an effect red cards have on a game,” said McCarty. “Full credit to Eric Quill and what he has been able to do this season with FC Dallas. Obviously, they control their own destiny.”
BC Place provided a key twist as Sam Sarver was brought down by Mathias Laborda just eight minutes into the game. Three minutes later Allan Chapman walked away from the VAR monitor concluding that Laborda had denied an obvious goal-scoring opportunity and pulled out the red card.
“Sam Sarver is a fan favorite of us in the studio with MLS 360. Bradley Wright Phillips played with him a little bit in Columbus. His energy is amazing, he’s just got such a good vibe about him. He’s a great kid. He knew right away when Mathias Laborda made that foul. At first, I initially thought that it was a yellow card because another Vancouver defender was close enough, but on replay, I think the referee got it right.”
Dallas, missing Petar Musa, Logan Farrington, and Ramiro all to suspension, had a lifeline against an impressive Whitecaps team determined to seal its maiden first-place finish in the Western Conference.
The Whitecaps had their own absentees – an entire defensive line of them with Tristan Blackmon, Sebastian Schonlau, Ranko Veselinovic, and Sam Adekugbe all out.
“[Eric Quill] set his team up with Anderson Julio and Sam Sarver up top, it was very clear what the game plan was going into it in terms of personnel,” continued McCarty. “Be able to absorb pressure and then use the speed of those two guys on the counter attack to try to make a goal in transition, and then just hope that your back line can hold up.”
After an 11th minute header by Osaze Urhoghide, Lalas Abubakar also trod the line of DOGSO when giving up a penalty in the 17th minute. It had been over a decade since Thomas Muller last missed a penalty in league-play, and the German sent Michael Collodi the wrong way to equalize.
Despite the man advantage, Dallas were largely on the back foot aside from a vital hold-up by Sarver in the Caps’ area that produced the winner for Kaick early in the second half. An impressive rearguard performance dealt with ten Vancouver shots to one in the last half hour. Dallas’ possession stood at just 4.5% in stoppage time as the hosts threw everything at a Burn back line that managed to hold out for the win to not only extend their season, but avoid the play-in game.
“It was a really wonderful performance for Dallas on decision day, and now they’ll have confidence playing against that same Vancouver team with your two best attackers back in Farrington and Musa. I think Vancouver are going to be the favorites quite honestly, and they should be, because they’ve been brilliant all season long. But there’s something about Dallas right now, they’ve got a really good momentum about them, and I wouldn’t put it past them to bring that series to three games.”
Previewing the Playoffs
Looking forward to game one, what changes?
For Dallas, there’s the obvious – Musa, Farrington, and Ramiro return for selection – but Eric Quill is known to ‘ride the hot hand’ and the added pace of Sam Sarver along with Anderson Julio caused the thread-bare Caps defense problems. Add to that, Patrickson Delgado is expected to miss game one with a hip injury that took the Ecuadorian out in the first half. Does that present an opportunity to get Musa, Farrington, and Sarver on the field together?
Then the defensive side of the ball. Ramiro is back, but does he return to right wing back or do you lean on his experience against Thomas Muller in a more central role. Does he play at all if you need the height of Lalas Abubakar and Sebastien Ibeagha after defending 33 crosses and eight corner kicks on Decision Day.
Jesper Sorensen similarly has a few players to re-integrate. Whitecaps captain Ryan Gauld made his third substitute appearance after a bone bruise of the knee (Yes, just like Paxton Pomykal) kept the Scot out for seven months. Joedrick Pupe made the bench for the first time since arriving with a partially torn hamstring in the summer. Tristan Blackmon and Brian White are also expected to return through the course of the playoff series.
Laborda is suspended for game one. Pupe, Blackmon, and Schonlau are working their way back. Between the walking wounded, and long term injuries for Veselinovic and Adekugbe, is the back line FC Dallas’ path to an upset?
“I think Vancouver is pretty vulnerable right now at their center back position,” explained McCarty. “I think they’re down to their their fourth and fifth choice center backs. Laborda is going to be suspended for that first game. Veselinovic is out for the season, and I haven’t gotten an update on Tristan Blackmon’s health. I would say that he’s probably a long shot to be available for game one just because he wasn’t on the bench against FC Dallas in the last game of the season.
“So I would say that Petar Musa should be on the ball as much as possible for FC Dallas. You want to find him in really good, advantageous positions, because I think Vancouver as a team is very good defensively, but if Petar Musa gets matched up 1v1 with, say, a Ralph Priso – who’s a good player, but he’s a midfielder that’s being converted to play center back for Vancouver right now – that’s a mismatch, and that’s an advantage for FC Dallas. So you absolutely have to take advantage of that.
“As far as any weaknesses for FC Dallas, they haven’t shown a ton of weakness the last couple of months. They have one loss in their last ten games. That’s a very consistent team, that is a team that is hard to break down, and that is playing really, really good soccer. I would say that in midfield, I really like what Christian Cappis has added to the team. I think he’s really brought a sense of calm in the midfield that maybe they were missing from before, but they’ve got a good balance about them.
“I would just say that maybe a vulnerability would be with [Bernard] Kamungo playing as a wing back. He’s more of an attacking player. He likes to get up and down the line. He likes to be aggressive in his starting positions. I would just say that Vancouver, they’ve got really dangerous wingers, and if I can just bring you back to Decision Day, I believe it was Emmanuel Sabbi who got isolated with Lalas Abubakar, 1v1 and was able to get by him and win a penalty for Vancouver. You know those tricky, fast wingers for Vancouver, if you isolate them with the FC Dallas center backs, 1v1, I think that’s going to make for a very long game for FC Dallas. So I think Eric Quill and that back line, they need to do a good job of making sure that the back line doesn’t get too stretched out, and the wing backs really tuck in and help keep that line of five. If you don’t, Vancouver has shown all year long that they are incredibly dangerous in transition. They have a ton of pace with tricky wingers on either side of the field, and you don’t want your center backs isolated with them all game.”
Plan of Attack
Dax McCarty was partially responsible for one of the great postseason shocks in MLS history just a year ago. His Atlanta United side similarly picked up a Decision Day away win against a higher ranked opponent, overtaking Toronto and DC to make the final playoff place on the second tiebreaker. A penalty shootout in Montreal set up a best of three against Leo Messi and the Supporters’ Shield winning Miami side.
After dropping a 2-1 result in game one in Fort Lauderdale, a stoppage time winner kept Atlanta’s hopes alive in game two. Outshot 25 to nine, the Five Stripes pulled off the shock elimination of an Inter outfit that accrued almost double their points total in the regular season.
So what’s the secret?
“The secret is just to focus on what you can control and focus on the internal belief within the locker room,” McCarty explained. “I really loved the social media video that the FC Dallas communications team put out of Eric Quill after the game. He just puts off such a great vibe as a manager. He puts off such a great vibe as someone who I would want to play for, being able to congratulate his team, but also say, ‘Hey man, let’s have a beer. We’ve earned it’. Players love playing for guys like that.”
That belief includes tuning out external noise, something which may be an easier task in a tournament-like schedule with the time spent on the 7,000 combined miles FCD may need to travel in the event of a full three-game set.
“Just play the 90 minutes in front of you and focus on what you need to do to be successful,” McCarty continued. “There are the team goals, which every player should be focusing on, but then there are individual goals, and it’s different for a goalkeeper than it is for your back line, than it is for your midfield, than it is for your strikers, like Petar Musa. His individual goals will be to score a goal to help the team win. Then Urhoghide, Ibeagha, or Shaq Moore, their goal is going to be let’s see if we can keep a clean sheet. Let’s see if I can prevent Thomas Muller from having a big effect on the games, because Thomas Muller has been excellent, and he has been one of the best players in Major League Soccer since he stepped foot in Vancouver. So how can you limit him.
“I remember my playoff series against Inter Miami. I just tried my best to go into every game saying, ‘Don’t focus on too much. Just focus on Lionel Messi when he has the ball.’ If he gets the ball off his foot quickly, try not to let him get clean looks at goal. Try not to let him get in and around your goal. Take it off his left foot. Those are the little individual nuances of the game that I think a lot of the players will be focusing on, while also making sure that they’re playing within the tactical game plan of the team. I know Eric will have his guys ready to go, and I think it’s going to be a lot closer series than a lot of people think.”
One notable point from Saturday’s win was the age of the players. The average age of the players coming off the bench to see out the game was 21 years and 91 days, with Paxton Pomykal tipping the average at nearly 26. Is that lack of experience a disadvantage?
“I don’t know if I would call it a disadvantage, but I would say that in the playoffs, experience definitely counts for something,” said McCarty, who made his own MLS Cup Playoffs debut aged 20. “What I love about young players is that sometimes they get thrown into the lion’s den and it’s sink or swim. They don’t have enough time to think about being nervous, and that’s what I love about a kid like Sam Sarver, who has come in and just been so fun to watch. He’s just going to go out and try his best, and he’s going to do the job, and he doesn’t have time to consider his nerves. So I don’t think it’s a disadvantage. I think maybe in a penalty shootout, it could be a disadvantage. If FC Dallas has to sub in some young players, and one or two of them have to end up stepping up and taking penalties, then that’s when you could see the inexperience. That’s when you could see real nerves come into it, but as far as from the run of play in regulation, no, I don’t think having young players come into the game is a problem at all.”
So there you have it from someone with 20 years in MLS, that knows FC Dallas from within, and casts a wide eye on the league. Use the pace in the team and get Petar Musa the ball against a weakened central defense, tune out the external noise, watch the wings, and try to close Thomas Muller out of the game. Do that, and good things may follow.