It’s entirely possible the Vancouver Whitecaps – 4 and 0 and on to the Concacaf Champions Cup Quarterfinals – might be the best team in MLS at the minute. Certainly, they are the best/hottest team in the Western Conference. So perhaps we can take that into account in this game.
But make no mistake, FC Dallas got played off the park. It was the Ides of March indeed.
“There’s a lot of football to be played. We have to dive deep on what happened tonight, diagnose it, and be honest with it. We’ll tweak some things. Anytime you drop two games, especially at home, you have to look at what you’re doing
FC Dallas Coach Eric Quill
FCD has now lost their first two at home for the first time since 2009.
Let’s break it down.
Lineups and Tactics
Ostensibly, FC Dallas is in a 4-2-3-1 but Lucho Acosta is being pushed so high that it’s effectively a 4-4-2. So I’m going to draw it rather than use the team-generated one.
Anderson Julio is off picking up his green card so Coach Quill had to go to his bench for Pedrinho. And yes, Quill mixed it up in the back, swapping Sebastien Ibeagha and Osaze Urhoghide left and right.
56th minute, Quill brought on Bernard Kamungo for Pedrinho. That’s a straight swap.
71st minute, Tsiki Ntsabeleng was on for Sebastian Lletget, another straight swap.
81st minute, a tactical change to a back 3 with Lalas Abubakar and Patrickson Delgado on for Logan Farrington and Ramiro.
Vancouver brought on the excellent Jayden Nelson for Ali Ahmed at the 65th minute.
The first double sub came at 78′ with Ralph Priso and Jeevan Badwal for Andrés Cubas and J.C. Ngando.
The final subs, in a game delay/kill type situation at the 90th minute, were Bjørn Utvik and Daniel Ríos for Pedro Vite and Brian White.
Goals
1-0 Vancouver Whitecaps goal. 54th minute. Oh hey, a cross from wide spaces. 1st, Pedrinho is asleep and allows J.C. Ngando just acres of space to fire a cross to the back post. Tristan Blackmon is darting in having drifted away unnoticed from Marco Farfan and slams home the header.
“Coming into the match, we knew that they were a super strong set piece team. We were a little bit late. He cannot have it that free. It’s a tough goal to concede.”
Maarten Paes
Lo Bueno
My FC Dallas Man of the Match was Logan Farrington. I thought he had the most fight and determination. He played must up to expectations. I was surprised, again, when he was subbed off. His stats weren’t great, but his effort was.
Maarten Paes was his usual top-notch shot-stopping self. Yes, he has flaws, but shot-stopping direct shots isn’t one of them. The below is a damn good stop and it wasn’t his only one. Now he misses the game against RSL.
Holding a team that creates chances like Vancouver to just 9 shots is a sold’ish defensive group performance. 5 of those shots on target though does cool the belief in that collective defensive effort as it made Paes work hard. Still, for a team that had given up 2 or 3 goals per game coming in I can’t hate holding the Whitecaps to 1.
I like Quill’s new hat.
Camino del Medio
I think Lucho Acosta got very frustrated with his teammates even though he saw lots the ball. He had great numbers hanging out more on the right wing than left this time. 61 touches, 4 shot-creating actions, 6 progressive passes, 4 progressive carries, and 3/8 on take-ons. He was also dispossessed 6 times, probably feeling like he was having to go alone. He only had 1 pass into the offensive third.
I don’t hate the idea of going three at the back to get more offense (the Abubakar sub). But it needs to be done by bringing on fresh offense. The idea, at least when I think it works, is to ask, “Who is on the field that can become the 3rd center back?” Then shift that guy into the 3 and bring off someone else to be able to actuate some more offense. Bringing on a CB isn’t going to do much. So perhaps shift Farfan to CB, slide Moore up to the wingback, slide Kamungo to wingback on the left, and bring on a Leo Chu or Tarik Scott for Ramiro to go high and generate offense. You might get a late-game state like this…
Muy Feo
FC Dallas had 7 shots at home. 7. And 0 on target for the first time since 2022. The offense, which should be the hallmark of a Quill team, was a mess. The tactics just weren’t working and the shape was gobblygook. Missing Anderson Julio was a big part of that. The image below shows Pedrinho’s average position is behind Marco Farfan‘s. Lucho Acosta‘s is ahead of Petar Musa. What looked promising after two road games now looks like trash after two home games. Dallas couldn’t hardly get out of their own end.
Vancouver had 726 touches to Dallas’ 595 and 585 pass attempts to Dallas’ 454. The possession Quill wanted just didn’t happen as Vancouver dominated the ball and didn’t look at all tired.
“We couldn’t find good rhythm with the ball, which is what we wanted to do tonight. We wanted to have long spells of possession because of what they have been going through.
Coach Quill
This is already the dead horse of the 2025 season, the FCD midfield is being bypassed, out-gunned, and not really getting involved. FCD has become a one-dimensional team trying to play over the top every time. One-dimensional teams are easy to defend.
Looking into the midfield, Ramiro outplayed Sebastian Lletget this time. Ramiro got up to 66 touched to Lletget’s 39. 8 progressive passes to 4, although Lletget had 2 shot-creating actions to Ramiro’s 0. But neither had a progressive carry or a successful take-on. Simply put, they weren’t able to turn and beat people and too often they just passed it backward. (Ramiro 8 progressive of 57 attempts, Lletget 4 progressive of 29)
“It’s not by design that we’re bypassing our two sixes and for me it’s on the team. We got to look at our guys, are they hiding in passing lanes? Are we just not seeing it fast enough? Are guys scanning the field when they don’t have the ball? That’s a tendency, guys tend to get ball fixated and as you rotate and switch the point, some guys take early looks and know what the scene is on the other side of the field, or around them, and some guys sometimes are late to seeing things and it ends up pressures in their face and and now we got to go back to the keeper and and we’re on high alert.”
Coach Quill
So as Quill hints, what is perhaps more telling is the lack of progressive receptions by his 6s – Sebastian Lletget with 1 – and Ramiro with 0 – and the passing out of the back. Simply put, the backs aren’t able to line break to the double pivot. The collective backline only had 7 total progressive passes (Farfan – 3, Ibeagha 1, Urhoghide -2, Moore – 0), and as we just noted only 1 got to a central mid. It’s all going wide and long. There’s just a complete disconnect through the middle.
“If you’re a guy who hasn’t had a lot of minutes, it’s game on. We have to grow and figure things out.”
Coach Quill
FC Dallas – George McFly
Vancouver – Biff
We need a Calvin Klein