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
Last week was a real test for the “I’d rather lose 4-3 than 1-0” crowd. I consider myself part of that crowd, by the way, and although FCD did pull out the 4-3 win, it wasn’t exactly a thing of beauty against one of the worst teams in the league who were a man down for the entirety of the second half. And thus, I was sitting on my sofa during the second half, contemplating how mad I was going to be when FCD turned a halftime 4-2 lead with a man advantage into a 4-4 draw or a 5-4 loss.
Thankfully, that didn’t happen, despite DC United trying to make it happen and despite FCD trying to let it happen, and FCD got their first league road win of the season… in the 26th game of the league season. (I had to put the “league” qualifier in there because they had that road win in Tampa Bay in the Open Cup, which — stop me if you’ve heard this one before — was dicier than it should’ve been.)
Onward and upward into a possible play-in game berth, which will have Dan Hunt unveiling a “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED” banner at Toyota Stadium.
EL SUPERCLÁSICO DEL SIGLO (de la semana)
Portland Timbers vs. Seattle Sounders (MLS Season Pass, 9:30)
“Oh wow, Dustin, you’re putting Portland-Seattle in the Superclásico slot. How original.”
Listen, man, I don’t like this any more than you do. I like interesting games, especially between two teams whose pairings haven’t been crammed down our throats for over a decade. Last week’s Columbus-LAFC game was a good example of that: Two really good teams playing at a high level in a consequential game.
But have you seen this week’s slate? Some games where you’re gonna have to squint and say, “OK, yeah, I can see that now… two teams fighting for playoff positioning,” some games that are Sickos-grade, and this one.
And to be fair, this one’s no great prize either. Portland’s seventh in the West after spending the first part of the season down near the bottom of the West before discovering that Evander’s pretty good and they should let him cook. But Phil Neville is still their coach and not yet doing a fabulous job making people forget that he was hired in Miami because he was David Beckham’s buddy.
Seattle likewise was down near the bottom of the West before getting, well, warm and now they have climbed up to fifth. But they got beat for the fourth time this season by LAFC on Wednesday night in the Open Cup semifinal and for their very spoiled fanbase, this is intolerable cruelty. Some have even started making noise about letting Brian Schmetzer do something other than being the most successful coach in the history of teams named “Seattle Sounders.” But who are we kidding? They’ll bumble and stumble all season, then once the playoffs start, they’ll look like Steve Rogers after the Super Soldier serum.
So neither team is really all that good, and we as FCD fans are very familiar with “not really all that good” at this point, and this game is quite likely not going to be an all-timer. But it is Portland-Seattle and the teams don’t like each other and the fans don’t like each other and the cities don’t like each other. So it beats most other games this week and it’s in Portland, in front of the Timbers’ great support, and let’s let Phil Neville have the final word on that:
I don’t even know what that means, but thanks, Phil.
Jefe the Hater’s rooting pick: Draw. Since we can start thinking realistically about FCD moving up in the standings, we can also be a little strategic and start having teams’ throw away points.
Little Brother Game of the Week
Los Angeles FC vs. Houston Dynamo (MLS Season Pass, 9:30)
However, if you’re into Little Brother-peeping or if you want to watch an actual good team, there is this one at the same time as Portland-Seattle.
And when I say “good team,” I of course am not referring to our little brothers down I-45. Are they in playoff position? Yes. They’re in 8th and by points per game, they’re in 7th. But… they’re not good. They weren’t flirting with the worst season in team history the way a certain team near and dear to our hearts was, but they’re still not good.
No, the good team is of course LAFC. In fact, if you listen to most announcers doing their games, you’ll note that those announcers will invariably tell you that LAFC as a team expects to win every trophy. That’s nice, I guess, but it’s really nothing new under the sun. After all, this league has been around for almost 30 years, and they’re not the first with such expectations. You had DC United and the Chicago Fire in the earliest years, then Little Brother Orange in the 2000s, then the Galaxy in the early 2010s, then Toronto FC in the late 2010s, and now, LAFC apparently wants to put themselves in that column on the strength of two Supporters Shields and an MLS Cup two years ago.
But here’s the deal, as any long-time fan of this league will tell you: Nothing lasts forever in this league. Eventually, everyone’s gonna spend several years down at the bottom of the crab bucket. All those teams that I just listed? They have spent several years at the bottom or are currently spending their time at the bottom. And it doesn’t take much. A bad coaching hire or two or three. A series of big-money signings that don’t pan out. A change in ownership. Some combination of the above.
But eventually, it does come. So feel free to beat the stuffing out of Little Brother Orange this weekend. Enjoy your time with the impossibly handsome Olivier Giroud. But I will laugh if and when you end the season with zero trophies. (But not too much, since that would involve losing to SKC in the Open Cup final.) And your day is coming.
Jefe the Hater’s rooting pick: LAFC
“Let’s Pretend to Care About the Eastern Conference” Game of the Week
Columbus Crew vs. New York City FC (MLS Season Pass, 6:30)
This is one of those games that I was referring to that have PLAYOFF IMPLICATIONS, but otherwise aren’t going to move the needle too much, and it’s probably due to the team from New York. Look, Columbus are your defending MLS Cup champions and as of last weekend, your defending Leagues Cup champions. They’re currently up near the top of the Eastern Conference. They play terrific soccer.
But their opponents? Yes, they’re from New York, which usually gets all the media types all fluttered because New York is the center of the universe. And way too many people get way too nostalgic for the New York Cosmos, which according to way too many people was the absolute zenith of American soccer.
However, Pelé and Giorgio Chinaglia aren’t walking through that door. (Or any other door anymore, if we’re being honest.) And what we get in New York is a team that is owned by Red Bull and is somewhere below RB Leipzig and Red Bull Salzburg and Red Bull Flugtag on the corporate pecking order, and a team that is owned by City Football Group and is somewhere below Manchester United and Girona FC and torturing human rights advocates on their list of priorities. (Allegedly on the last point.)
And the latter team, who currently play most of their home games at the home of some of history’s most notorious villains, the New York Yankees, is Columbus’ opponent on Saturday night. But they, like their rivals across the Hudson, are pretty anonymous these days. They’re in fifth place in the East, which ain’t bad, but they don’t really have much in the way of star power. The team from Little Ole Columbus is more successful and star-laden.
Which I find both amusing and a good thing.
Jefe the Hater’s rooting pick: Columbus
Sickos Game of the Week
Chicago Fire vs. Inter Miami (MLS Season Pass, 7:30)
I really thought about making Sunday’s St. Louis-LA Galaxy the Sickos Game of the Week. And hey, it would’ve been fun. LA’s on top of the West, while St. Louis is down near the bottom. Then you had the whole “reversal of fortune” angle, since both teams were in opposite places at the end of last season. Then you had the whole contrast in styles in LA is a legitimately fun team to watch, while St. Louis until very recently was employing a donkey like Tim Parker.
But instead, I’m going with this game because first and foremost, Chicago stinks and Miami has been pretty darn good, even without a certain diminutive Argentine playmaker. And Miami scores goals even more readily than the Galaxy, while the Fire… don’t. Yeah, my fellow nerds will tell you that Miami is way outperforming their xG and that that’s unsustainable blah blah blah, but I would respond that that’s why you’re paying top dollar for Lionel Messi and Luis Suárez, to score goals that other people wouldn’t.
I picked this game because I honestly thought that Miami was gonna suffer a bit when Messi went down in Copa América, but so far… nope. And I want to see how long that noping continues. It got them through last week’s 2-0 win over second-place Cincy and got them the little “x” next to their name for clinching a playoff spot in (checking calendar) August.
I’m genuinely impressed since we’ve all watched teams that were great until they suffered one key injury and those teams fell apart. Now, one could say that Messi isn’t a key player, but that would be an utterly silly thing to say. Maybe they’re a little like the Chicago Bulls while Michael Jordan was suspended retired, a team that was already good without their superstar, with a great coach in charge.
Amusingly, this is Miami’s second visit to Soldier Field since they signed Lionel Messi and their second without Messi. And since the Chicago Parks and Rec Department is as bad at grass maintenance as I am, I’m sure that the field will be in terrible shape, since the Bears have played there in the last month. Maybe the soccer gods don’t want to watch one of their own play on that cow pasture any more than the rest of us do.
Jefe the Hater’s rooting pick: Miami. I don’t like seeing the Chicago Fire have nice things, like wins.
Good Guys Game of the Week
FC Dallas vs. Colorado Rapids (MLS Season Pass, 7:30)
For those of you who don’t know, I actually reside in Colorado. And while my wife often jokes that I should start rooting for the Rapids, there’s no way that that’s gonna happen. First, I’ve spent most of my adult life supporting the Burn and FC Dallas, and I’m not sure that I could ever change course on that front. Second, the Rapids are an absolute clown-car organization. Watching the Kroenkes’ stewardship of the Rapids makes one legitimately appreciate the Hunts.
And because of that and the two teams’ long history with one another, dating back to 1996, it used to be so easy writing about them in this column. They were penciled in for regular appearances in what used to be the Bumfight of the Week – later the Sickos Game of the Week – I’d write some mean stuff about how the Kroenkes barely know that they own the team, how their home stadium has fallen apart so quickly that you’d swear it was built by Chip and Joanna Gaines, and how the team stinks. Easy.
Maybe if I wanted to spice things up, I’d write about how this shit-ass team has crushed the Burn’s and FCD’s championship dreams in 1997 and 2002 and 2005 and 2006 and 2010.
But then something happened this offseason. The Rapids got much better, at least on the field. They’re still a clown-car operation with a quickly deteriorating stadium, a pathetic youth development system, and owners who can be charitably called “hands-off.” But their first team appears to be pretty good? And they did it by hiring Chris Armas, who personifies “coaches are hired to be fired,” and signing some decent players, and some players who would previously be names you’d name if someone ever did “Remembering some guys in Major League Soccer” on social media.
And really, I don’t know what to do with myself this week. Hell, even going to the “they crushed our DREEEEEEEEEMS” card seems a little forced. The last time they did it was in 2010. Frankly, the Seattle Sounders have been more a dream-crusher lately.
You know who else I feel this ambivalent about? Real Salt Lake. But at least they’ve got beloved former Rapids coach Pablo Mastroeni to entertain us. And they’re good.