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
On the downside, FCD let a halftime lead slip away and lost two points.
On a second, related downside, they lost Petar Musa, undisputed team MVP for 2025, at halftime with some hamstring tightness.
But on the upside, they did come out of the game with a road point, and since Salt Lake and San Jose both lost, they crept a little closer to a playoff spot. Not that I would value finishing in 8th or 9th as highly as the Futebolburo at Toyota Stadium, but it does beat the hell out of going the other direction. It’s not as if there’s any real benefit to tanking in this league. DC United does it for the love of the game.
And it served as a great reminder why I’m happy that Nico Estévez has found gainful employment somewhere other than Frisco. Little Brother Green had roughly 99% possession in the second half. (Don’t fact-check that.) And while many other teams would’ve translated that into a barrage of shots at Michael Collodi that would’ve resembled Rambo holding off an entire Soviet platoon, Little Brother Green finished the game with a grand total of four shots on goal. And Jáder Obrian didn’t get to play hero.
EL SUPERCLÁSICO DEL SIGLO (de la semana)
San Diego FC vs. Portland Timbers (MLS Season Pass, 9:30)
Another thing that annoys me about Nico Estévez is that he was hired in the first place at FCD. Not only was he a soccer terrorist, and not only did he mess with the club’s youth development DNA, he, apparently, was hired instead of a guy who was already on the payroll under Luchi Gonzalez and who was a part of FCD’s youth system and who has apparently turned out to be a competent MLS head coach.
I am, of course, referring to Mikey Varas. And when I read stuff like this…
“One thing that I know that I have strong convictions about,” head coach Mikey Varas said upon his hiring last September, “is you can play with young players. You can play a proactive, entertaining style of play, and you can do that and win.
“And it takes a certain amount of work and dedication and conviction, and it takes some time. But all of those things are possible.”
…it serves as a little salt in the wound about what might’ve been. Great job with the Nico Estévez hire, guys. At least y’all figured out — along with the rest of us — that he might not have been the right hire for this club, but unlike y’all, we don’t get paid to make these sorts of decisions with a certain amount of foresight.
And at least y’all didn’t hire a coach who managed to not put a club legend like Diego Chará into a match on Diego Chará Bobblehead Night.
Jefe the Hater’s rooting pick: San Diego
Little Brother Game of the Week
Houston Dynamo vs. San Jose Earthquakes (Apple TV+ free game, 7:30)
I’m going to take a moment to acknowledge that I was wrong about Ben Olsen. When he was hired, I looked at his long and glorious record at DC United, including the worst 34-game season in MLS history in 2013 and a whole lot of mediocrity otherwise, and concluded that he was gonna be a big bag of nothing in the Bayou City.
But I have to admit that I was wrong. I failed to look at how he managed to rally that 2013 DC United team to win the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup, and I didn’t conceive that he could win silverware in Houston. And last week, he proved me wrong. By virtue of FCD’s draw against Austin, Little Brother Orange has won this beautiful spittoon:
I would ask when the parade is, but I’m sure Olsen is busy preparing to welcome his old coach to town and give him the customary gift of three points. Hopefully, as a gracious guest, Bruce Arena will decline his gift.
Jefe the Hater’s rooting pick: Draw, only because I don’t want San Jose to get three points.
“Let’s Pretend to Care About the Eastern Conference” Game of the Week
Nashville SC vs. Orlando City (MLS Season Pass, 7:30)
Regardless of the fact that it’s not in the SUPERCLÁSICO slot, this might actually be the best match of the Matchday:
- Both teams are level on 47 points, third and fourth in the East.
- Orlando just advanced to the Leagues Cup semifinals, with a 3-in-4 chance of qualifying for next year’s CONCACAF Champions League.
- Both teams have silverware-winning coaches, Pareja with FCD and Orlando, and Callaghan with the US Men’s National Team.
And you know who agrees with me for a change? Major League Soccer Soccer dot com, which nonetheless wants you to watch a snuff film just because it might feature a special guest appearance by Lionel Messi:
But I want to take the opportunity to crap on the FCD Futebolburo for hiring Nico Estévez instead of Mikey Varas, so San Diego goes into the much-coveted SUPERCLÁSICO slot. But if you want to watch two well-constructed, well-managed teams in a game with real stakes at this late stage in the season, this is your game. Or it will be worth watching later, since Nashville is in a superior time zone to most of the rest of the Eastern Conference, and this game will be at the same time as the FCD game.
As always, this column’s standing policy is to be an Óscar Pareja apologist, so as much as we like Nashville coach B.J. Callaghan, it’s no great surprise who the rooting pick will be.
Jefe the Hater’s rooting pick: Orlando
Sickos Game of the Week
Atlanta United vs. Toronto FC (Apple TV+ free game, Sunday at 2:00)
One of the things that annoys me most in MLS discourse is using “ambition” as a substitute for “willingness to spend a lot of money on players,” for two reasons:
- People can have ambitions to win ways other than “outspend your rivals by a country mile.”
- There’s plenty of history that it’s not a sure-fire way to win.
These two teams are great examples of the second point. Toronto’s history on this front is well-known. They’ve spent and spent and spent throughout their entire history. And for most of the 19 seasons that they’ve been in the league, it hasn’t been very successful. But given that they share ownership with the Toronto Maple Leafs, who have spent money with abandon for decades and have not won a Stanley Cup since the Lyndon Johnson Administration, it can be argued that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
They did have a nice run in the late 2010s, when they won an MLS Cup and a Supporters Shield with a team built by Tim Bezbatchenko and coached by FC Dallas legend Greg Vanney, but Bezbatchenko left for the Crew and won championships there, Vanney is now the coach of the defending MLS Cup champs, and the team and success that they built is now a thing of the past.
Meanwhile, Atlanta likewise had an MLS Cup in the late 2010s and just spent this past offseason spending more on transfer fees for three guys than FC Dallas has in their entire history. And here they are, 12th and 13th in the East, both with fewer points than FCD. You love to see it.
Jefe the Hater’s rooting pick: Toronto, largely because I love seeing how their fans respond to neverending incompetence. Just sayin’, the Atlanta fans aren’t hanging banners from overpasses on the Downtown Connector yet.
Good Guys Game of the Week
FC Dallas vs. Los Angeles FC (MLS Season Pass, 7:30)
Speaking of large transfer fees paid out to sign players, but with the twist that it’s being done by an organization with a recent history of success, we’ve got the Son Hyung-min signing by LAFC for an MLS record transfer fee. I guess that the indignity of being in fifth place in the West was too great for LAFC management.
But let’s talk about how this affects me. As some of y’all might know, Tottenham Hotspur is my Premier League club. I started supporting them after I became a fan of the game after the 1994 World Cup, before there was an MLS. I didn’t know what I was getting into.
What I found out in the next 30 years is that whenever Spurs had a truly great player, he’d end up going to a club that I disliked. Jürgen Klinsmann went to Bayern Munich. Teddy Sheringham went to Man United. Gareth Bale went to Real Madrid, then LAFC. Harry Kane went to Bayern Munich. And now, Son Heung-min is at LAFC.
A fellow Spurs fan — who supports a different MLS club — wondered if he could cheer against Son when he came to his town with LAFC. No doubt in my mind, man. I love everything that Son did with Spurs, and I love that he helped bring the Europa League title to north London a few months back. But I’ve been #DTID for 30 seasons.
Son will be wearing the wrong uniform on Saturday night at the Toyota Stadium Construction Site, and as such, I wish him nothing but failure and discomfort, just as I wish for Ryan Hollingshead and Nkosi Tafari.
It’s nothing personal, it’s just business.