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
It’s only the second game of the season, but the fact that FCD went into Dick’s Sporting Goods Park and didn’t crush my soul fills me with optimism for this coming season.
”But Dustin, it was a draw…”
Ssssssssssssssh.
”But Dustin, they gave up three goals…”
I said “Ssssssssssssh,” dang it!
Look, this team went down 2-0 early in a place that’s been a house of horrors for them and instead of turtling, they fought back, went into the half at 2-2, and took the lead midway through the second. Yeah, they coughed up the tying goal a few minutes, but hey, they were fighting for the win the rest of the match and would’ve gotten it, had it not been for an overly eager assistant referee.
It’s amazing what can happen when you spend some dough on not just one difference-maker (Petar Musa), but two difference-makers (Lucho Acosta). And oh yeah, having them playing for a coach that’s gonna go for it AT ALL TIMES. Such a breath of fresh air.
EL SUPERCLÁSICO DEL SIGLO (de la semana)
Seattle Sounders vs. Los Angeles FC (Fox and Apple TV+ free game, 3:45)
This is one of those times that the league’s marquee game, the game they’re gonna highlight to the masses watching on Fox and the cheapskates who are paying for Apple TV+ but not MLS Season Pass, is actually a good game.
It’s also a game that’s of particular interest to FCD fans because these two teams have been answering the question that was occasionally asked over the past few years, “Which FCD players would actually start for a contender?” The funny thing is that the answer people gave for this question was never “Paul Arriola,” and yet, out of him and Jesús Ferreira and Nkosi Tafari, he’s getting the most minutes. Ferreira is not too far behind, and Tafari is further back.
But there’s only one start in six league games between the three of them, the 90-minute appearance by Nkosi Tafari against NYCFC last weekend. Meanwhile, Arriola and Ferreira’s starts in Seattle have been limited to the CONCACAF Champions Cup games against Antigua and Cruz Azul.
And all three will be reunited on the field on Sunday in Seattle. Well, maybe after the 70th minute, they’ll be reunited on the field. And that’s probably going a long way in answering that old question.
And it goes a long way in explaining why their names are no longer being mentioned in the final slot of the column, especially when you consider that their guaranteed salaries in 2024 added up to over $4 million.
Jefe the Hater’s rooting interest: Draw.
Little Brother Game of the Week
Austin FC vs. Colorado Rapids (MLS Season Pass, 7:30)
So far this season, under their new head coach Nico Estévez, Little Brother Green has won a home game 1-0 and lost a road game 1-0. None of this will surprise any FCD fan and any FCD fan would undoubtedly agree with me that it is almost the platonic ideal for a Nico Estévez team.
- Both games were 1-0
- Home win
- Road loss
There is only one thing that keeps it from being THE platonic ideal for a Nico Estévez team, and I’ll get to that in a moment.
But yeah, one goal for and one goal against in two games. I haven’t watched a minute of Little Brother Green this season because I had better things to do on Matchday 1 and I was in the most scenic part of the Denver metro area while Little Brother Green was playing on Matchday 2, but so I can’t break down their games like an actual soccer writer would.
But I do know that they’ve spent $30 million on attacking players in this most recent offseason and they produced fewer goals than the former North Texas SC MVP and a $5 million transfer from FC Cincinnati did in five minutes at the end of the first half this past Saturday night. God bless you, Nico.
Jefe the Hater’s rooting pick: Draw, preferably 0-0 or 1-1, so that it can truly be the platonic ideal of a three-game stretch of Nicoball.
“Let’s Pretend to Care About the Eastern Conference” Game of the Week
Inter Miami vs. Charlotte FC (MLS Season Pass, Sunday at 2:00)
(2025 Lionel Messi content counter: 2)
Inter Miami rolled into the Bayou City last Sunday night for SUNDAY 👏 NIGHT 👏 SOCCER 👏 (insert SFX of a thunderclap here) without the greatest player of our generation and… they rolled anyway. They were up 3-0 at half and went up 4-0 before Nico Lodeiro got a consolation goal towards the end. Captain Obvious will come along any moment now to tell us that if you’ve got other difference makers like Luis Suárez (one goal, three assists) and Sergio Busquets (one assist, 89% passing), you can probably survive missing Messi for a week or two.
Or maybe we should’ve learned that last year when Messi went down for several weeks and Inter Miami pulled away from the pack during that time.
Meanwhile, Wilfried Zaha made his debut for Charlotte FC last week, scored a goal, and was named Man of the Match. And while other teams might go for understated post-match trophies like a Man of the Match stetson or sawed-off slices of a log given to the goalscorers, CLTFC is going all out for their Man of the Match:
This is so ridiculous. I love it. It’s right up there with MLS’ having a big trophy presentation and fireworks display for the team that wins the All-Star Game. People might call it cringe, but it’s the sort of goofy, harmless fun that we need more of. The only downside is that it’s gonna be sort of like the shootout where it was fun for the first five times, then became a beating: “Oh God, I gotta go sit on that damn throne and pose for pictures.”
At least with FCD’ MOTM stetson, the only imposition is to have Garrett Melcer or Eddie Koton or whomever hand you the stetson on the field, take a few pictures and a short video for social media, and you get to go into the dressing room and get showered and dressed and get on with your life.
And now, I’m casually wondering what Inter Miami does for their MOTM. A stuffed heron? A signed photo of David Beckham? Vintage Miami Fusion gear? The mind boggles at the possibilities.
Jefe the Hater’s rooting pick: Charlotte.
Sickos Game of the Week
Vancouver Whitecaps vs. CF Montréal (MLS Season Pass, 8:30)
Normally, in this column, I like to take shots at CF Montréal for being a backfiring clown car of a club, between letting Wilfried Nancy walk, doing the most unnecessary rebrand in the history of Major League Soccer, then doing it again because folks couldn’t stop making juvenile jokes about what the first rebranded logo looked like:
But this offseason, the team at the other end of Canada gave them a run for their money. First, right after their playoff exit, they fired head coach Vanni Sartini. In addition to giving me lots of material with his everyman “middle-aged dad at the Home Depot on Saturday” attire and his leftist anti-Batman views, he also happened to be their most successful head coach in team history. He racked up more points per game than Carl Robinson or anyone else, and with him in charge, the Whitecaps won three straight Canadian Championships.
Then, a month later, the team’s owners announced that they were putting the team for sale. Now, the current owners are saying that they hope the buyers will keep the team in Vancouver, but c’mon. The fact that somebody’s even asking the question is pretty telling. Hell, they’ve already lost an NBA team in the last 25 years. (What, did you think that that team in Memphis is named for all the grizzly bears present in the Mid-South?)
But until the Whitecaps get moved to Vegas or Phoenix or wherever they’re continuing to be good on the field, currently perfect in MLS and level 1-1 with Monterrey after the first leg in the CONCACAF Champions Cup Round of 16. And Montréal is at the bottom of the east, continues being an ongoing embarrassment to La Belle Province, and is traveling eastward to likely get their teeth kicked in.
Jefe the Hater’s rooting pick: Montréal.
Good Guys Game of the Week
FC Dallas vs. Chicago Fire (Apple TV+ free game, 7:30)
Once upon a time, when MLS was still fairly new and I didn’t have so much gray hair on my head, the Chicago Fire were one of the elite teams. They won MLS Cup ’98 in their expansion year, won four US Open Cups in 1998, 2000, 2003, and 2006.
However, you’ll notice that none of those years are particularly recent ones. Since then, they’ve been a joke of a club, cycling through manager after manager — including multiple Frank Klopas tenures — signing star player after star player, including Bastian Schweinsteiger, whose arrival was made even more memorable by the assembled Chicago media:
Not only did Schweinsteiger not lead them to the World Cup, he only led them to the ultra-prestigious MLS Cup playoffs once in his time in Chicago Bridgeview. The following season, the Fire left their soccer-specific stadium in Bridgeview to return to Soldier Field, where not much has changed. The crowds are still mid and the soccer is still bad.
However, they have managed to hold onto the Brimstone Cup. This once-hotly-contested trophy created out of some rather contentious battles between the Burn and Fire in the earliest years of MLS was sidelined a bit by Chicago’s being moved out of the same division as Dallas in 2002, which resulted in fewer matches played and more attention paid to other teams, like the little brothers down I-45 and I-35. In fact, Chicago has appeared only once on FCD’s schedule since 2019 and Chicago has not visited Toyota Stadium since 2018, the last time FCD won the Brimstone Cup.
But the Fire comes to town on Saturday night and for us OG fans, it’s a special occasion and rekindles memories of the Burn’s last-second win in 1998, the comeback from 2-0 down in Game 3 of the Western Conference Semis, and FCD’s first-ever win at Pizza Hut Park in the 2005 US Open Cup semifinal.
Piss on the Fire. FC Dallas 7, Chicago 0