This win was massive. I mean huge. The first road win of the season that FCD desperately needed and it opens the door to a legit chance to make the postseason.
Let’s be real though, DC United is having a worse season than FC Dallas. They aren’t good. But the win is still massive.
“It’s going to be tough and we know that. To get this type of win against this team, crowd and environment is a big boost of confidence for us heading into these next few road games.”
Sebastian Lletget
Lineups and Tactics
Interim Coach Peter Luccin didn’t do his usual flex-type shape perhaps having a player capable of legit wingback play on the right was the difference. He was able to move Paul Arriola to the left wingback, something I considered for my preview but discarded (chicken!). Thus we got a more standard 3-4-3 from Luccin.
Asier Illarramendi and Sebastian LLetget were in the XI returning from injury. Ruan, who I expected, and Show, who I did not, stepped right in.
This is one of the most accurate lineup cards we’ve seen under Luccin, yes Tsiki Ntsabeleng was at right wing. Or maybe “under-wing” is what we should call this spot.
62nd minute, Jesus Ferreira makes his return from injury coming on for Ntsabeleng.
70th minute, Sam Junqua came on for Logan Farrington, more on this down below.
89th minute, Patrickson Delgado made his return from injury coming on for Illarramendi.
DC United in a 4-4-2. Since their social media are cowards, we go to MLS for the shape.
46th minute, clearly not happy with the first half, DC makes a triple sub. Martín Rodríguez, Aaron Herrera, and Matti Peltola came on for our old friend Dom Badji, Cristian Dájome, and Mateusz Klich.
62nd minute, Gabriel Pirani replaced Ted Ku-Dipietro. 75th minute, Pedro Santos came on for Matai Akinmboni.
Goals
Because there were 7 goals, I’m going to mostly leave out the video clips/tweets.
0-1 DC United goal. 2nd minute. Christian Benteke, surrounded by three FC Dallas players, crushes Marco Farfan in particular to win the header and scores.
1-1 FC Dallas. 9th minute. Sebastian Lletget’s corner falls right to Nkosi Tarafi on a back door screen-play. Tafari calmly volleys the ball home.
2-1 FC Dallas. 21st minute. Beautiful sequence. I’ll put the clip for this one in. End-to-end build that comes to Sebastian Lletget. Great team goal, quality finish, and wonderful passing.
3-1 FC Dallas. 40th minute. Illarra to Tsiki back to Illarra who finds Parul Arriola at the back post. Another nice team goal.
2-3 DC United goal. 42nd minute. Jared Stroud down the right gets a cross in, Benteke gets a touch, and Ruan gets beaten at the back post by David Schnegg.
2-4 FC Dallas. 44th minute. FCD as a collective strikes again. Farrington to Lletget to Tsiki Ntsabeleng at the other back post. Just lovely.
3-4 DC United. 48th minute. The FCD mids are a bit in chaos and DC grabs the loose ball. Rodriguez snares it and feeds Matai Akinmboni, who then finds Jared Stroud for the goal.
Lo Bueno
Sebastian Lletget was my Man of the Match. He also made MLS Team of the Week on the back of his fantastic performance. 1 goal, 2 assists, 5 key passes, 11 progressive passes. He was a man on fire. Dude is playing the best soccer of his Dallas career. Since Luccin took over, Lletget’s shot-creating actions have jumped from 1.4 to 3.1 per game. Fantastic form.
“I am so proud of this group. The last two weeks helped us grind as a group. Peter (Luccin) really pulled us together and we wanted to fix things that we felt were not good enough.”
Sebastian Lletget
I loved how quickly FCD responded to the opening goal in the 2nd minute. Some previous versions of FCD would have folded at that point.
Dallas with an ok 13 shots on the road but a staggeringly good 8 shots on target. They did an excellent job of working into good scoring positions.
Great showing by Show. I had no idea what kind of player FC Dallas was getting and he looked the part. Good composure on the ball and knew when to possession vs progress. Overall he was up for it. Nice, if not elite, addition. 94% passing, 7 progressive passes, 4 shot-creating actions, 2 progressive carries, won 50% of challenges, had 2 blocks, and 6 recoveries.
Solid game by Ruan, minus getting beat on the 2nd DC goal. The balance between Ruan and Paul Arriola was terrific. FCD hasn’t had that this year and it’s so key in a back-3 system.
“Top, top games from both of them. They gave us freshness, bite, aggressiveness and football. This is exactly what we were looking for and exactly the philosophy of FC Dallas. So they fit perfectly into what we want.”
“So many emotions right now. It was a beautiful first half, we played amazing soccer and scored great goals. Very proud of the soccer we played on that field, it’s not easy.”
Interim Coach Peter Luccin
Camino del Medio
It was really good to see Jesus Ferreira back on the field. He didn’t do a lot (29 minutes, 13 touches), but he’s such a key player. FCD is going to need him.
Muy Feo
Logan Farrington wasn’t bad, his fill-in performance was good enough. But he should have had two assists and it’s not like he’s a player who won’t pass. But twice he took a shot with a wide open for a tap-in goal. Needless to say, his more veteran teammates were not happy about that. When he did the second one, he was pretty much instantly yanked by Luccin.
“Beautiful effort from Logan (Farrington), great game from him. He’s been working hard, it’s not easy in his first year at this level but he’s doing excellent. Very happy with him.”
Coach Luccin, completely disagreeing with my point.
DC United reminds me of a club in a relegation battle trying to outphysical their way to safety. They lead MLS in yellow cards with 76, red cards with 7, and are 2nd in fouls committed with 397. They had 17 fouls committed in this game. That ties the season-high for most fouls suffered by FCD, the other game with 17 was against the other “out foul you” team, Sporting KC, back in July.
Watching 5’10” Marco Farfan man-mark 6’3″ Christian Benteke on set plays was certainly something. It underlines why we talk about the center back profile being 6’2″ or 6’3″ and why FCD needs a top-tier center back.
Paul Arriola‘s yellow card last game means he’s on suspension for the next game vs Colorado Rapids.
FC Dallas Playoff Hunt
Point Target: ~44 pts (probably)
Have: 33 pts
~Need: 11 pts
Game left: 8
~Wins Needed: 3.6 (3 wins, 2 ties)
Instant Reaction – 3 Things
FC Cincinnati is signing former Houston CB Teenage Hadebe as a free agent. Feels like that’s someone Dallas should have been in on. Maybe they were and he chose a better situation in Cincinnati, and he may not be great, but definitely would be an upgrade on Gonzalez or Farfan (CB version).
what happened to musa??
He was a scratch in warmups. Something with his foot, IIRC.