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 League Soccer on TV.
Musical accompaniment
Worst Season Ever Watch
Life is sometimes unpredictable. This league is often unpredictable. This team, however, is not. They are very predictable:
- Nico Estévez will pick a lineup in a formation that leaves the greatest minds in soccer baffled.
- The team will struggle to create any sort of chances.
- Jesús Ferreira will play anywhere but somewhere that one might expect a forward to play.
- Petar Musa will look as if he’d rather be in Porto at that moment.
- Somebody will lose a mark on a set piece, commit a dumb foul in the box, or get beaten badly on a counterattack and FCD will concede a goal
- Repeat the last thing, maybe a couple times.
- FCD will get a late consolation goal from Musa or someone else and lose 2-1 or 3-1.
And so it was on Saturday night in Toronto. As such, FCD in 2024 is back on track for its worst season ever.
2024 – 2 wins, 6 losses, 2 draws, 8 points
2003 – 2 wins, 5 losses, 3 draws, 9 points
EL SUPERCLÁSICO DEL SIGLO (de la semana)
Columbus Crew vs. FC Cincinnati (FS1 and Apple TV+ free game, 6:45)
There are a couple of reasons why Columbus’ winning MLS Cup last season was a good thing:
- You can casually mention it to fatalistic dipshits who say that the team in the country’s #5 media market will never win MLS Cup because all the good imports will want to go to LA/New York/Miami.
- It forces Fox to work another team into their regular Galaxy/LAFC/Atlanta/Seattle/Inter Miami rotation.
And since FC Cincinnati won the Supporters Shield last season, well, that was a good enough reason to feature this game here, especially since they’re currently second and fifth in the Eastern Conference.
Look, I know what this rivalry is called. It’s named for some billboard that some guy put up next to I-71 between Cincinnati and Columbus years ago. And honestly, it’s a cool name. And because the name is what it is, it doesn’t have some goofy sponsor’s name, which I personally appreciate in these modern times where MBA doofuses act like everything has to be turned into a billboard whether it needs it or not.
(This complaint, however, does not apply to 3rd Degree. Use code 3RDDEGREE at Soccer90.com for 20% off, and for all your estate planning needs, talk to our buddy Kevin Lindstrom at the Lindstrom Law Firm.)
So until the MBA weasels in the Columbus and Cincinnati front offices get their way and turn this into the White Castle Battle for Ohio or some similar nonsense, let’s enjoy the current name and its assertion that eternal damnation is, in fact, A Thing. Of course, it’s a thing. It’s Ohio.
Jefe the Hater’s rooting pick: Columbus. Not for any good reason except that I talk up Wilfried Nancy so much here that I don’t want to look like a chump.
Little Brother Game of the Week
Sporting Kansas City vs. Houston Dynamo (MLS Season Pass, 7:30)
I unabashedly love the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup. First, it is America’s oldest soccer competition, with over a century’s history. Second, it forces MLS teams to condescend to play lower division teams, which you know that MLS owners (quite likely including two whose names rhyme with “Dark and Flan Bunt”) hate. Third, because it gives you moments like this:
Slightly less amusingly, it gave us the Sporks’ needing a goal in the last kick of the game — in extra time — to close out Union Omaha of USL League One. We’ve all been hating on our team a lot this year, thanks to only two wins in the first 10 games, but credit where credit is due, they were able to advance past their USL Championship opponent and were able to do it in 90 minutes.
But I don’t think that Nico Estévez has it in him to troll USL honks in a couple of weeks when the Tampa Bay Rowdies knock them out in St. Petersburg the way that Ben Olsen did after his boys blew a 2-0 lead at home:
Jefe the Hater’s rooting pick: Draw, because two teams are both still losers in my eyes, and always have been.
“Lets Pretend to Care About the Eastern Conference” Game of the Week
St. Louis City vs. Chicago Fire (MLS Season Pass, 7:30)
“Say, isn’t St. Louis in the Western Conference?”
Yes, yes they are, but to be honest, this is the best most interesting game from the Eastern Conference this week that isn’t taking place in Ohio. Besides, I’m not even sure that MLS knows which conference either of these teams are in.
Let’s face it: MLS has never handled its teams in the Central Time Zone especially well. Chicago started in the West, but it’s been in the East ever since the league took the Fusion and Mutiny around back and gave them the Ole Yeller treatment. But that was 20 years ago, so maybe they’ve figured it out by now.
But our pals in Houston were in the Eastern Conference for several years for some unknown reason. And so was Sporting Kansas City for a while! But after MLS put a bunch of teams in hillbilly towns in the East like Nashville and Atlanta and Miami, every team in the middle of the country where the late local news starts at 10 PM at the latest and the West Coast games aren’t on TOO late are in the Western Conference… except for the Chicago Fire.
And they’ll get featured in this slot because otherwise, we’d never talk about them. Such things happen when you’ve been hot garbage for almost two decades. (I originally wrote “more than two decades,” but I fact-checked myself and was surprised to be reminded that they won the Open Cup in 2006. And the MLS Fair Play Award in 2009.) They’ve had more home stadiums than trophies since George W. Bush was President.
Is St. Louis that good this year? No. Are they an Eastern Conference team? No. But it’s MLS Rivalry Week sponsored by I Don’t Really Give A Damn Who! It’s St. Louis vs. Chicago, a historical civic rivalry that has extended to the Cardinals and the Cubs and the Blackhawks and Blues!
Jefe the Hater’s rooting pick: Uh, a draw, I guess. I mean, I remember the Good Ole Days of the Brimstone Cup, so I don’t really want the Fire to win, but you know, St. Louis is a Western Conference team and I’d rather that they not win.
Sickos Game of the Week
New York Red Bulls vs. New England Revolution (MLS Season Pass, 6:30)
It’s not often that a team gets hamblasted 6-2 one week and is expected to do the same to another team the next week. But here we are.
What was that last week, Red Bull? You had a 1-0 halftime lead against Miami. I’m not some kind of great soccer mind, but I do know that you gotta work damn hard to give up six goals in the second half. And Lionel Messi might be the greatest, but I’m pretty sure most teams can keep one player from having a hand in all six goals. Luis Suárez damn near has to be wheeled around in a wheelchair between games and pumped with enough painkillers to kill a horse during games, and you allowed him to put up a hat trick?
You’re better than this. You might be a money-laundering operation for some repulsive Austrian energy drink who cares more about its teams in Leipzig and Salzberg, its Formula 1 team, and about 10 different extreme sports that are tailor-made for The Ocho, but you’re better than this.
Fortunately for you, you get to rebound at home against the New England Revolution.
I’ve got nothing against the New England Revolution. I really don’t. I sympathize with the fact that they’ve had a tough time in MLS Cup Finals. I sympathize with the fact that during their existence, they’ve had to share a home stadium with the most successful NFL of the modern era. I sympathize the team’s owner is more upset that Jeff Ross made a massage-related joke at Tom Brady’s roast than he is that his team is the worst team in MLS.
However…
They chose to hire Caleb Porter. It might’ve been for entirely rational reasons, but I’m never gonna get tired of seeing any team coached by him suffer mightily.
Jefe the Hater’s rooting pick: New York, largely because I want to see if the Revs will actually fire Porter in his first season. Heck, even Walter Zenga got more than one season.
Good Guys Game of the Week
FC Dallas vs. Austin FC (MLS Season Pass, 7:30)
I gotta give credit where credit is due: Nico Estévez went for it on Tuesday night in the Open Cup and played something resembling a full lineup against Memphis 901 and got the W.
Mind you, he’s persisting with his bonkers fascination with having three in the back, even though he doesn’t really have a full complement of center backs and his wingbacks are converted wingers and outside backs and no one looks like they can play this way without constantly thinking about what they’re doing, and they struggled to a 1-0 win against a not-that-great USL Championship side.
But what about the weekend’s game against Little Brother Green?
Don’t even care. As far as I’m concerned, FCD got what it needed to get out of this week.
I don’t agree with people who say that MLS doesn’t care about the Open Cup. I don’t agree because I think that MLS wants to actively get away from the Open Cup, including two owners whose dad’s name might be in the official name of the competition. They’d rather pretend that this game against some johnny-come-latelys with the dorkiest fan base in the league matters more. They’d rather pretend that the stupid-ass, invented-out-of-thin-air Leagues Cup matters more.
Don Garber, with twentysomething owners’ hands stuck up his backside, can tell me this because MLS doesn’t control the Open Cup and they don’t get to have the TV rights to package to sell to Apple. Those things still don’t matter as much and they won’t matter as much. And none of that shit is my problem anyway.
I want FC Dallas and the rest of MLS in the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup, not some glorified bullshit friendlies against Liga MX teams that just happen to have a CONCACAF Champions Cup berth attached to them for no apparent reason.
Don’t give me some jive about fixture congestion. Y’all made that fixture congestion happen. Don’t give me some jive about attendance. I saw how many people were in the house for Necaxa and Mazatlán. Don’t give me some jive about field conditions. If you clowns ever gave a damn about field conditions, y’all sure haven’t said anything about it for the last 28 years.
And don’t give me some jive about how I should care about this game because it’s a “rivalry.” I don’t. I won’t. It ain’t. FC Dallas can lose the next ten games straight against Little Brother Green as long as they’re holding up the Open Cup in September.
I said before the Little Brother Orange game that if FCD beat Orange both times, they could finish in last place for all I care. I still feel that way, but I’ll amend it. If FCD beats Orange both times, wins the Open Cup, and finishes in last place, they can give Nico Estévez a damn contract extension.
But these clowns on Saturday night? They’re glorified Real Salt Lake.