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
Winning is fun! Let’s do that more often! Was FCD at home? Sure. Did LAFC rotate some players? Sure. Do I care? Absolutely not. Three points are three points.
A couple of weeks ago, we were giving flowers in print and elsewhere to Jimmy Maurer for putting up such a great performance in Vancouver in what might be his last start as a professional player. We might need to do the same for Omar Gonzalez after helping to keep Kei Kamara and Olivier Giroud off the board last Saturday night.
Omar’s played sparingly this season, which is what most of us anticipated when they made the signing. He came here on a team-friendly deal to close out his career for his hometown club. He might be, um, “experienced” and, um, “deliberate,” but he’s also a savvy veteran who knows where he needs to be and knows when to not be somewhere he shouldn’t. There’s a reason why he was a key part of some trophy-winning teams in his younger days.
So when it came time to keep his fellow members of the 35-49 demographic off the board, he was up to the challenge and if this is the last time we see him start, since there are only four games left and playoffs are far from certain, that’s all we can ask for.
EL SUPERCLÁSICO DEL SIGLO (de la semana)
FC Cincinnati vs. Los Angeles FC (MLS Season Pass, 6:30)
Since the last column, LAFC won some silverware. On Wednesday night, they beat Sporting Kansas City in extra time to lift the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup. I was frankly disgusted that that was the matchup, but hey, they won the games to get there. That said, I didn’t really want either team to win, but if I had to pick, I was picking LAFC to win for three reasons:
- Sporting Kansas City needs to lose just on general principle.
- Sporting Kansas City needs to lose because it’s funny to see Peter Vermes suffer.
- Because it would end Sporting Kansas City’s season from a competitive standpoint.
That’s right, kids. Feast your eyes on this:
When SKC lost to Minnesota last weekend, it might’ve been bad for us as FCD in its perhaps quixotic effort to make the playoffs, but it eliminated SKC because they are now 11 points behind 9th place Minnesota with three games to play.
Note that I didn’t say anything about LAFC in all of that. In many respects, they were just the faceless executioner, which is a helluva thing to say about a team that has tried so hard to be something more than “faceless.” But they finally won some silverware, largely because they weren’t facing a team from Columbus, Ohio, and it might be their only silverware this year because they’re not winning the Supporters Shield and man, I don’t think they’re MLS Cup caliber.
Jefe the Hater’s rooting pick: Cincy, who was Supporters Shield caliber last year, but decided to sell Brandon Vázquez to Monterrey. But maybe that juju that Columbus has against LAFC transfers to their slightly less successful neighbor.
Little Brother Game of the Week
Seattle Sounders vs. Houston Dynamo (MLS Season Pass, 9:30)
DID YOU KNOW?
Little Brother Orange is currently undefeated on plastic fields this season:
- June 1 – 2-2 draw at Portland
- June 15 – 2-2 draw at Atlanta
- July 20 – 4-3 win at Vancouver
In fact, they have a better road record, 8-5-2, than home record, 5-3-7. Frankly, as a fan of a team that can’t really win road games on any surface, I will tip my cap to them for their road prowess.
But as a scientist by trade — hey, my degree says “science” on it — I do wonder why that’s the case. Surely, their players have to be used to the mild summers that one experiences on the Gulf Coast every year. And their packed stadium full of boisterous support must give them an amazing home-field advantage.
It’s truly a mystery.
What is equally mysterious is why Sounders coach Brian Schmetzer has an expiring contract at the end of the season:
Look, the guy is only the most successful coach in the history of your club, even if you include the NASL team in that history. Why he’s not been extended, why he has to answer questions it, all feels like an ownership that is in the mood to prove to themselves and their fans who the real geniuses were all along. Sort of like how Jerry Reinsdorf got rid of Phil Jackson in 1998, immediately after the Bulls won six NBA titles in eight years.
I’m sure it’ll be fine.
Jefe the Hater’s rooting pick: Seattle, whose fans will get to contemplate who’s gonna get to play the role of Tim Floyd.
”Let’s Pretend to Care About the Eastern Conference” Game of the Week
New York Red Bulls vs. New York City FC (MLS Season Pass, 6:30)
This league is truly strange sometimes. If I were to tell someone from most other places in the world that a team owned by Red Bull was playing a team owned by Manchester City’s owners, they could be forgiven for thinking that there was more at stake than mere playoff positioning.
And yet, such is the case for this game.
Since this game is at Red Bull Arena, we’ll also likely get to see what sort of tifo the Red Bulls supporters have cooked up to roast their pals from across the Hudson, but let’s face it: There’s probably less juice for this particular game than for most other rivalry games this season. Compare and contrast with all the various El Tráfico matchups this season.
And sure, that has a lot to do with the fact that the Gals and LAFC have been the two top teams in the West this year, but it’s also a fact that both the Red Bulls and NYCFC are pretty anonymous this season. Both Red Bull and City Football Group have made the decision to stock their teams with young talent to develop for their bigger clubs, not with big stars, which is fine. Lord knows that as FCD fans, we’re used to it.
I just can’t give you a good reason to watch this game instead of Cincy-LAFC.
Jefe the Hater’s rooting pick: Red Bulls, because somehow an energy drink seems less noxious than sportswashing human-rights abusers.
Sickos Game of the Week
CF Montréal vs. San Jose Earthquakes (MLS Season Pass, 6:30)
The obvious choice here would seem to be St. Louis-SKC. SKC’s already out of the playoffs and St. Louis is a hair’s breadth away from elimination. But I already shit on SKC earlier in the column. Besides, I’ve got something to say here about the worst team in the league this season, and one that’ll likely be one of the worst of all time.
I am of course referring to the San Jose Earthquakes. But really, I’m not going to talk about them as much as their shitty ownership who this week passed another signpost on their road to infamy. John Fisher is better known as the owner of the Oakland A’s, who played their final game in Oakland this week before they move to a minor-league ballpark in Sacramento, and ultimately, Las Vegas.
I’m not going to spend much time talking about the A’s departure as much as I am Fisher’s shitty ownership. Today’s I saw the following graphic:
No one expects the A’s to match the Yankees or the Dodgers for spending, but holy crap. When you’re can’t even top a contract from almost 20 years ago, that’s a team that’s been left to wither and die. Now let’s look at his other Bay Area team. This is the bottom of the salary rankings in MLS:
27th out of 29. (We see you, Montreal.) But hey, RSL is just above them and they’re doing OK, right? And if you click through, you’ll see Columbus, Philly, Vancouver, and Minnesota right above RSL. So salary spend isn’t everything in MLS, right? No, but…
This a rather damning excerpt from Matt Doyle’s Earthquakes postmortem at Major League Soccer Soccer dot com. The point here, of course, is that John Fisher’s major league sports ventures have two things in common: parsimoniousness and utter indifference to competence.
He is the worst owner in major league professional sports in North America. He’s mismanaged the A’s for years to the point where no community in the Bay Area wanted to partner with him on a new stadium. And wherever he lands, he’ll mismanage the team there too. Just ask the Little Brother Green fans who are realizing that their team’s owner is still the same asshole that burned every single bridge in Columbus.
The Quakes will remain in San Jose for the foreseeable future. But those stars over the crest from their 2001 and 2003 MLS Cups, won by a different team under different ownership, are now old enough to drink. At least they got the stadium which the A’s never got.
Jefe the Hater’s rooting pick: Montreal. It’s not often that Joey Saputo manages to skate by when there’s a big rant on terrible ownership, but this is his lucky week.
Good Guys Game of the Week
FC Dallas vs. Orlando City SC (MLS Season Pass, 7:30)
Normally, I’d say a bunch of mean stuff about the opposing team, the opposing coach, the opposing city, and the opposing fans, but this week is the exception.
Óscar Pareja is coming to town for the first time since I started doing this column, and man, I just cannot write anything bad about him or his team as an opponent, not after everything that he did for the Burn and FCD as a player and a coach over the years.
So I’ll just root for an FCD victory after a hard-fought, clean, respectful game and wish Óscar Pareja and his team the best of luck in what remains of the season.