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
Introduction
For most of the rest of the world, this weekend is an international break. Just about every first division takes a break to let some of its players play for their countries.
Mind you, these international players are a small minority of their players, but competitive integrity is a thing. Can you imagine, for example, if FC Barcelona had a match this weekend without Lamine Yamal and their other internationals?
MLS, on the other hand, is different. Now, it used to be that the league used to truck on through the international windows with full schedules and with teams fielding rosters that would be a bit different than their usual rosters, but over the years, they’ve attempt to take international breaks, but not completely, since the calendar is what it is and they have to leave space for crap like Leagues Cup.
So this weekend, most of the league is off, except for eight teams. Eight teams, only one of whom is currently in playoff position at this late date.
Welcome to SICKOS WEEK, a week in which most reasonable people find something else to watch, like international soccer matches or NWSL or USL or college football or baseball. Not the sickos. We’ve got Apple TV up on our screens, watching some of the worst teams that MLS has to offer.
Eastern Conference Sickos Game of the Week
Chicago Fire vs. New England Revolution (Apple TV+ free game, 7:30)
Remember when the Fire abandoned their soccer-specific stadium to return to playing at the cow pasture on Lake Shore Drive known as Soldier Field? The funny thing about that is that they didn’t completely abandon it. When you share a stadium with the Chicago Bears, you know who’s gonna get catered to, so if Da Bears have a game at Soldier Field on a given weekend, you’ll either get to have all the NFL marking on your soccer field, as their did the first time they played at Soldier Field in the ’90s and early ’00s, or you’ll just play elsewhere.
So the Fire play three games a season over at SeatGeek Stadium, the home of the Chicago Red Stars of the NWSL, since the Bears are at home for Monday Night Football to open their season. The Red Stars are also at home this weekend. Well, sort of. They’ll be playing here, at Martin Stadium at Northwestern University in Evanston:
And for those of us who are unfamiliar with the intricacies Chicago-area professional soccer venues, this might seem like a case of the men’s team kicking the women’s team out of their stadium, but no, Martin Stadium, currently the home of Northwestern University football, will be the new home of the Red Stars in 2026.
But back to the Fire. They’re allegedly gonna be building a new stadium in Chicago here in the next few years, but given how things have gonna for soccer venues in Chicago, that place will probably be hosting swap meets within a decade of opening. Or maybe they’ve taken a few hints from the Revs and making yearly stadium construction announcements right when the season-ticket renewals go out.
Jefe the Hater’s rooting pick: Draw.
Postponed Sickos Game of the Week
Houston Dynamo vs. LA Galaxy (MLS Season Pass, 7:30)
This game was supposed to have been played on July 26, but after a four-hour thunderstorm delay, the teams and the league decided to just postpone the game to this weekend. In fairness, the pitch was a bit waterlogged:
The good news is that the weather should be great this time around, since it’ll be a brink September evening in the Bayou City:
Of course, rearranged matches are becoming a bit of a common occurrence for the Gals, since their game last weekend against Our Heroes was rescheduled to October 11, during the next international break. Why? Because they were playing in the Leagues Cup third-place game against Orlando City last weekend.
They won that game 2-1 in front of a half-filled Dignity Health Sports Park and will thus have a berth in the 2026 CONCACAF Champions Cup. That figures. The Gals are having the worst season in club history, one of the worst seasons in league history, and they fall ass-backward into international competition. This might be even funnier than 2013 DC United having the worst season in league history and winning the US Open Cup.
And it’s especially funny because LAFC might’ve spent $26 million on Son Heung-min and will still likely not qualify.
Jefe the Hater’s rooting pick: LA
Semi-competent Sickos Game of the Week
Sporting Kansas City vs. Austin FC (Apple TV+ free game, Sunday at 6:00)
This game is notable for two reasons:
- It features the only team playing this weekend that’s actually in playoff position, namely Little Brother Green.
- It’s the league’s featured SUNDAY ⚡ NIGHT ⚡ SOCCER ⚡⚡⚡ game this week.
That last point is amusing to me, largely because the league itself has to pretend that this game is something worth watching. Matt Doyle is a good soldier and makes a game attempt at it, when we all know that under any other circumstance, there’s no way he’d watch. However, he does give us a few great quotes:
It hasn’t all been smooth – by the underlying numbers, Sporting are the worst team in the league – but there’s been a… lightness, I guess? A freedom, maybe?
and
This is a fanbase that really wants to see attractive, winning soccer, and it’s been a long journey to get to “attractive, winning soccer,” but honestly… well, I still don’t think they’re there yet.
Translation:
- Sporting Kansas City is still terrible, but hey, at least they don’t make your eyes bleed.
- Austin’s fanbase, unlike every other fanbase known to mankind, wants to see attractive, winning soccer, and well, they hired Nico Estévez anyway, but at least, they’ve stumbled into goal-scoring since they lost a DP that they spent millions on. (As an aside, we FCD fans wouldn’t know anything about THAT.)
Anyway, I’m not trying to roast Matt Doyle. I’m really not. He’s done a professional job as a writer to try and give anyone a reason to watch this game. He can’t say, like I will, that both of these teams deserve to get explosive diarrhea that forces them to cancel the game. He can’t say, like I will, that SKC is almost as assy as they were when FCD got Peter Vermes fired. He can’t say, like I will, that Little Brother Green’s sudden scoring explosion came against the following teams:
- Two goals against LA Galaxy, 15th in the West
- Four goals against DC United, 15th in the East
- Two goals against Little Brother Orange, 10th in the West
- One goal against FCD (lol), 12th in the West
- Two goals against Montréal, 14th in the West
- Three goals against San Jose, 9th in the West, but fourth-worst GA in the league
Like I said, on any other day, he wouldn’t get within 10 miles of this game, and neither should anyone else who isn’t a Sporks or Little Brother Green fan. But he’s a professional writer tasked with selling space heaters to people already in hell, and he’s done a professional job. Meanwhile, I’m a hater.
Jefe the Hater’s rooting pick: Screw both these teams.
Good Guys Game of the Week
St. Louis City vs. FC Dallas (MLS Season Pass, 7:30)
This league has a few teams that have started with great success, been celebrated by this country’s largely sycophantic national soccer media,and then completely fallen apart:
- DC United: A truckload of trophies in the first decade of the league, and only their famous Wooden Spoon-Open Cup double since.
- Chicago Fire: An MLS Cup and multiple US Open Cups in their first decade, and nothing since.
- Atlanta United: An MLS Cup in their second year and an Open Cup in their third, but have missed the playoffs in three out of the six years since.
We can add to that list St. Louis City, and they’ve sped run through their boom-and-bust. Remember the ancient times of 2023, when they came into the league? They had their own downtown stadium from the get-go. They went wire-to-wire on top of the Western Conference that season. Roman Bürki won Goalkeeper of the Year. Bradley Carnell was a finalist for Coach of the Year, Eduard Löwen was a finalist for Newcomer of the Year, and Tim Parker was a finalist for Defender of the Year. They were rightfully celebrated for all their successes.
In the process, some people got a little bit too excited:
Then came their playoff series against the Sporks. The Sporks, who had finished in 8th and won their play-in game against 9th-place San Jose on penalties, beat them in St. Louis and Kansas City.
And then the downfall began. Carnell was fired midway through 2024 after a slow start. Former RSL head coach John Hackworth tried his darnedest as interim, and the team played better, but they missed the playoffs. Olof Mellberg was hired this past offseason but was fired in May. David Critchley is the current interim head coach, trying to right the ship, but to no avail. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s four head coaches in three seasons.
The only thing that hasn’t changed much has been the roster. Bürki is still there, as is Löwen and João Klauss. Tim Parker’s gone, but of their top 10 players in minutes played in 2025, eight of them were on the team in 2023 and 2024. This reminds you of the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. (Meanwhile, FCD’s top 10 list in minutes played has four players who arrived before 2025: Sebastien Ibeagha, Maarten Paes, Petar Musa, and Marco Farfan.)
So… it should come as no shock that they got rid of their Technical Director, Lutz Pfannenstiel, a week and a half ago. And of course, some people didn’t forget the irrational exuberance of what Pfannenstiel built in 2023:
Veth shouldn’t be too hard on himself. It’s pretty easy to decode “getting taken out to the woodshed many times over the course of 2024 and 2025.” Time to give St. Louis one more thing to decode.