I’m Dustin “El Jefe” Christmann, and I am an FC Dallas fanatic from Day One of the Dallas Burn. I’m also a hater. I used to yell mean, hateful things from the stands at the Cotton Bowl and Toyota Stadium, but now, I’m sharing my id with you to help guide you, my fellow FCD fans, in your enjoyment of Major Soccer on TV.
Musical accompaniment
Last week
Y’all may or may not have noticed, but the ol’ Hatewatching Guide hasn’t run the last couple of weeks. I was on vacation, enjoying a little R&R.
And while I was gone, our boys won two out of three, our boys three goals in all three games — let’s overlook that one of those goals was into their own net against Vancouver — and Sam Sarver scored stoppage-time goals in each of those two wins, one of which iced the game against RSL and the other won the game in San Jose.
I’m not saying that my vacations are reliable as “Buzz goes out on his yearly walkabout and FCD makes a big personnel move,” since I’ve only paid attention this year. What I am saying, however, is that if folks want to make a donation to the Send Dustin on Vacation Fund, I’m willing to see if I can repeat these results.
But back to Sarver. The game-winner in San Jose was more special than just a game-winning goal in stoppage time, though that is pretty special in and of itself. We’ve all seen the celebration with the can of Modelo that a generous San Jose fan threw at him roughly 100 times apiece, largely because it’s broken containment and has become a hit in the national sports media:
Now, this isn’t FCD’s first flirtation with the national spotlight. A lot of the entries on The List ended up making national news for about five minutes. But most of those moments were, um, slightly embarrassing for those of us who call ourselves DTID. It’s weird to see them end up in the national spotlight for something cheeky and fun.
Whatever. Enjoy your new cult hero status (and your free palette of Modelo), Super Sam:
EL SUPERCLÁSICO DEL SIGLO (de la semana)
Nashville SC vs. New York City SC (Apple TV, 7:30)
This is the final matchday before MLS pauses for the World Cup, and MLS is giving you the hot, hot matchups right before they shut down for almost two months!
Oh. Two Sickos-grade matchups (Columbus-Atlanta and Miami-Philly) and two interesting West matchups, but not this game? We’ve got the Supporters Shield leaders hosting the fifth-place team in the East, and the social media geniuses at Major League Soccer Soccer dot com can’t make a little room in the graphic for it? C’mon now.
Yeah, yeah, I get it. You’ve got the two sponsored games of the week and two Fox games, so they’re gonna be on the graphic. But I will point out that one game that’s gonna be on Fox this weekend isn’t on that graphic, but I’ll get to that one later.
And while I like to point out MLS’ questionable choices in which games they hype, I will also say that it’s probably also a metaphor for both teams in this game. Right now, the various World Cup participant nations are releasing their rosters for the tournament, and the USA will announce theirs on Tuesday afternoon, live on Fox. The USA’s big-name coach will announce a roster that has some players who have pretty substantial endorsement deals in this country, even though they play in another country. How far we’ve come as a soccer nation.
Meanwhile, BJ Callaghan — unlike Mauricio Pochettino — has won silverware as the USA’s coach. And his players? Nah, you’re not Hany Mukhtar or Sam Surridge or Cristian Espinoza appearing in any ads on national TV. They’re not Lionel Messi. They’re not Heung-Min Son. They’re not even Christian Pulisic or Weston McKennie. But they and their teammates have been great signings for a well-constructed roster, coached by a guy who never really got a good look by the federation before they brought back Gregg Berhalter and before they brought in Pochettino after Berhalter’s (second) departure.
And New York City FC? While I made jokes about how the Red Bulls are becoming the little brother in New York in MLS, it’s not as if the big brother is flying high either. It’s probably not a good look for me to say that I constantly have to look up who their coach is, but it’s probably because they change their coaches almost as often as Montreal does, even though they can actually play soccer, unlike Montreal. Their leading scorer, Nicolás Fernández, was recently the subject of a piece entitled “Nicolás Fernández Mercau: MLS’s most slept on star?” at the league’s website. The leading scorer for the team that actually plays inside the country’s biggest city is getting slept on. It boggles the mind.
So yeah, I guess it makes sense that MLS isn’t trying to get people to tune in. Lionel Messi ain’t playing, and promoting him sometimes seems like the only thing they know how to do.
Jefe the Hater’s rooting pick: Nashville
Little Brother Game of the Week
St. Louis City SC vs. Austin FC (Fox and Apple TV, 1:45)
This is the other game that Fox is carrying this weekend, and it’s pretty obvious why it didn’t make the league’s “must-see matches” graphic. Both these teams stink out loud, and by all rights, this game should be in the Sickos Game slot.
But I’m featuring it this week for one reason and one reason only.
Another big thing that happened while I was away from Hatewatching Headquarters is that Little Brother Green decided to part ways with Nico Estévez. Now, I was amazed that they even hired him in the first place, a mere couple of months after FCD let him go in 2024. But when you’re the head coach of a team that gets bounced from the Open Cup by Louisville City, gives up five goals apiece to San Jose and San Diego, and gets beaten at home by a putrid SKC team, all within a month’s time, these things can happen.
Still, I was surprised to be briefly doomscrolling on my phone on Monday and see the news. Little Brother Green isn’t very good, but they’re far from being the worst team in the league or even the Western Conference. I expected them to rumble and bumble and stumble their way through the rest of the season with Nico in charge. And hey, maybe they’d be able to turn things around with Brandon Vazquez finally starting to get minutes after his time on the shelf.
But you know who else was surprised to read the news about Nico’s firing? His players:
And now, Davy Arnaud is in charge, at least until Little Brother Green hires a new coach, whom we hope will not be another former FCD coach who found himself on the business end of a firing this season. But since nothing looks as good to our pals down I-35 as FC Dallas on the resumé, I guess seeing Papi in green remains a dreadful possibility.
Jefe the Hater’s rooting pick: St. Louis
Sickos Game of the Week
Columbus Crew vs. Atlanta United (Apple TV, 4:00)
As you can see from the “must-see matches” graphic above, this game is the SUNDAY 💥 NIGHT 💥 SOCCER 💥💥💥 game of the week. And it’s truly Sickos grade. Mind you, nobody expected it to be that when they were making out the schedule. After all, Columbus has been one of the better teams in the league for the last several seasons, and Atlanta? They were terrible last season, but hey, they brought back Tata Martino this past offseason to see if he could do anything with players that they spent a lot of money on the previous offseason.
Needless to say, it has not gone as well for either team as anyone would’ve thought. I don’t even need to look to tell you that there is pretty much no one who had them at 13th and 14th in the East in their preseason prognostications. In fact, I don’t think that anyone’s ever had Atlanta that low in preseason prognostications in the 10 seasons they’ve been in the league. Jerry Jones admires that sort of consistency in winning the offseason.
But here they are. The Crew has already fired Henrik Rydström, whom they hired this past offseason to replace Wilfried Nancy, who left to take what turned out to be a working vacation in Glasgow with Celtic. He’ll be replaced by Laurent Courtois, who is French and was formerly the CF Montreal head coach.
Seeing as he won MLS Cup with Atlanta and the Supporters Shield and Leagues Cup with Miami, I don’t expect that Atlanta’s gonna fire Tata anytime soon, but hey, we’ve already had Óscar Pareja, Henrik Rydström, Nico Estévez, Marco Donadel, and Javier Mascherano get pushed out or otherwise depart so far this season. Just sayin’ that he might not get TOO comfortable in his return to Atlanta.
Jefe the Hater’s rooting pick: Columbus, because I want coaching chaos.
Good Guys Game of the Week
Colorado Rapids vs. FC Dallas (Apple TV, 8:30)
As I mentioned above, this is the last game before the World Cup break. And while I was gone on vacation, Petar Musa was named to Croatia’s World Cup roster. Put two and two together, and there’s a strong possibility that this game might be the Musa’s last in FCD colors, especially if he goes Beast Mode — err, Moose Mode — for Croatia.
Of course, we were all sitting here three and a half years ago — stupid scheduling for Qatar, amirite? — thinking the same about Jesús Ferreira. And we were all so invested in that happening. Jesús was the face of FCD’s academy-to-first team pipeline, the player who remained with the club and committed himself to the club for big money, while Weston McKennie and Chris Richards and Ricardo Pepi and Tanner Tessmann all left at the first opportunity. He had a fabulous 2022 season, tying the club record for goals in a season. Qatar was going to be his big coming-out party on the world stage.
It wasn’t, of course. But if someone had told us that an FCD forward would be playing in the 2026 World Cup, we’d jump to the conclusion that it would be him again. Never would we have guessed that the forward would be a player who was mostly a substitute for Benfica. But after 48 goals in 80 games in all competitions over two and a half seasons in Frisco, here we are.
There is no doubt at this point that he is the single greatest striker in FC Dallas history. He has 46 goals in league play, tied with Kenny Cooper Jr. for second in the FCD all-time scoring charts. But Cooper did that in 121 appearances. Musa has done it in 73. His goals-per-90 is the best out of all FCD strikers — better than Cooper, better than Jason Kreis, better than Ariel Graziani, better than Jeff Cunningham, better than Blas Pérez. And he has done it in a league that’s better than it’s ever been, with a team that hasn’t always surrounded him with pieces to let him shine his brightest.
If Saturday night in Commerce City is the last we see of Petar Musa, may he give us one final performance to sear into our memories what a special player he’s been for FC Dallas. And if Saturday night is the last we see of him in an FC Dallas shirt, I won’t be sad that he’s gone; I’ll be glad that I got to see him while he was wearing the red and blue.
