March 12th, 2009 . 10:15 pm . By: Buzz Carrick

For most of this spring, I’ve been talking about the FC Dallas roster being out of balance.  Even before the Red Stripes hosed Jamie Watson I felt the team needed another striker, now I think they need two.  With the loss of Marcelo Saragosa for a month or more, the trade of Adrian Serioux, and the poor FCD play in Brazil, FCD is in even more of a mess on defense.  Despite the team being already overloaded with defenders, when I asked FCD head coach Schellas Hyndman if he needs another defender he didn’t hesitate to agree.

I think we’re missing one. We’re missing one defender. With Marcelo [Saragosa] being injured and the situation being where we’ve got to move Drew [Moor] out there, I think we’re one defender short. We may have one defender too many in the center. We have Pitch, Drew, Danny and Steve. As you saw today, we’re also working in George John.  I think we need more flank defenders and I don’t think it’s on the left.

Despite the mess in the back, Hyndman doesn’t regret the loss of Adrian Serioux.  While he mentioned multiple factors, I still believe trust might be the biggest one after Serioux pulled out of two of FCD’s biggest game with an injury after trying to give it a go.  Hyndman says it’s more about doing right by the player.

It’s a strange situation. There are always thoughts about that, but he was on the last year of his contract. I think we got a great value for him and he really wanted to be home. How much can you get a guy to mentally be here when he doesn’t want to mentally be here? The second thought is that what happens now that we have an injury with Marcelo? I think that in the long run, it was the best decision for him and I think we got good value for him as well.

But defense isn’t the only problem area.  Up top FCD has two clear starters and then a unprepared Generation adidas player who isn’t close to being ready to contribute.  I still feel it was a big mistake to pass on Watson, in this league you need guys like that.  Watson has proven he can come off the bench, outplaying Dominic Oduro last year to such an extent the Ghanaian was deemed expendable, and this sprig outplaying every trialist in camp.  He’s on a cheap number to boot.  Not to mention he played virtually every other position on the field for FCD the last year.  That ads value.  Hyndman says not enough though, but did acknowledge cost may be a problem in finding a replacement, which is perhaps why he left the door open to Watson with the “might bring him back” comment earlier this week.

[We need] a striker coming off the bench. It’s not just a striker coming off the bench. You mentioned Peri and he’s not ready, so it has to be a striker coming off the bench who is capable of starting. That runs into salary cap problems. If you want a striker who can start for you, you’re not going to be getting him on the low end.

I’ll go one further and say they need two strikers off the bench.  While a third starter level player is great (plus hard to find and expensive), I would also look for a role player to fill one spot.  Hyndman though seems content with midfielders or flank players as more of a second striker to fill the gap.

[Ferreia] can also play that No. 8 position where he’s right there as that second striker. So he potentially could be the second striker and Dax could be the attacking midfielder. We’ve got Andre, Eric and so forth. There are things we can do, but I think our strike force is going to be pretty good with Kenny and Jeff, two good strikers. Dave on the left side, he serves the ball as well as anybody in the league. On the right, Dax has had a really good preseason and you put Ferreira there and that’s a pretty good group of five.

With the Under-20s, Brek Shea has been playing up front as well. So the two of them (Shea and Marosevic) are the starting strikers for the Under-20s. Brek has the fortune, or misfortune, of being so versatile that you can play him anywhere. Maybe on this year’s team, he’s a forward for us because we are thin there. But we still only have 23 men on our roster, so we have to cut three to pick up a forward, an attacking player and a defending player.

One player that does seem to be a target is twenty-four year old Costa Rica attacker Alvaro Sanchez.  Hyndman acknowledge Sanchez’ good trial in Brazil and says he’s a potential target for the club.  It’s the player’s versatility that seems to have the Toro’s gaffer most excited.

He’s one of the players that’s in the mix. The thing with Sanchez is that he’s a second striker, he’s an attacking midfielder, he’s a left-sided midfielder and a right-sided midfielder. On his club team, he is a No. 10 but with the Costa Rican national team, he’s right midfield or a No. 8. If you’re going to pick one player that can solve a lot of problems in your strike force, then he would be that player.

With the season just over a week away is there time to get all that done?  FCD has one open spot that Hyndman says is already under consideration with both positions as potential fillers.  But clearly the coach wants another player or two on top of that.  Adding more players past twenty four means roster cuts with little time left before the regular season starts.  It could a hectic period for coach and player alike.

Keep your eyes open, cause the team you see against CAP this weekend might not look much like the team you will see in two to three weeks.

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