Look, I am bummed. This season has been miserable. Steve Morrow and the 3-5-2 seem like ancient history. Juan Toja? He played for Dallas back in the 90s, right? Arturo Alvarez… didn’t he retire?
Well, here we go again, another huge home game with major playoff implications. Another home game on the same day as another major sporting event in town, this time the Red River Shootout down in the Cotton Bowl.
You gotta love the final stretch of the MLS season. For the most part, teams are being pushed to play for wins, resulting in stretched defenses and lots of goals. Now is no time to sit back with nine behind the ball and wait for the counter-attack. This past week saw 24 goals from 7 matches. Not bad, boys, not bad.
Perhaps the most important game yet of the 2008 season will be played Sunday when the team from Washington DC comes to town. The city will be fixated. The fans will be pumped. The players will be feeling the pressure and the gravity of such an important game. The TV cameras will be dutifully recording the action, the announcers chirping away…
After giving up yet another lead, this time on the road at DC United, most FC Dallas fans should have realized that 2008 is largely done. There will be no playoffs. There was the early exit to a USL-1 club in the U.S. Open. Then there was the three freakin’ coaches in one year and yet there is Michael Hitchcock, smiling and smiling and looking as safe as a baby in a crib.
FC Dallas faced a virtual must-win match at home last week and failed the test, losing to the previously reeling Colorado Rapids. Once again, an inability to score off numerous chances and an inability to defend the set-piece cost most likely cost the Hoops a chance at the playoffs in 2008. It certainly narrowed the wiggle room they might enjoy as other teams slip up.
Over the history of FC Dallas Burn there have been too few moments of glory.
The Colorado Rapids are in trouble. Actually, they have been since their opening night evisceration of the LA Galaxy, a game which gave fans a very false sense of security. The Rapids of 2008 have not been able to solve the problem of points on the road in MLS. Only Real Salt Lake is worse away from their friendly confines, securing a single win and two ties in 11 tries. That sort of futility will get a head coach fired in this league, and it would have had not Fernando Clavijo resigned for family reasons.
If the season ended today, FC Dallas would be in the playoffs as the 3rd seed in the West. Is that crazy or what? A team that started off the year on such high hopes has quickly gone through three coaching changes, two full formation and tactics switches, a loss to a USL side in a meaningful match, the sale of the team’s MVP from a year ago and a protracted ordeal involving rumors, speculation and offers for the services of their best player, Kenny Cooper, Jr.