FC Dallas is Cool

This whole working vacation thing is ruining my blogging grove. I mean c’mon my last entry was like two sentences. Anyway… I’ll get back to the good stuff in early August when I go back to Texas.

Mas, mas, mas, after the jump.

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Victor Sikora has been brought in for a trial. He is a 30 year old former Dutch international. I’m just glad something is being done. More of this please!!!!

It’s coming up! The MLS transfer window opens on August 15 and will be the first chance for Schellas to make the changes he wants. Usually the mid-season window doesn’t cause too much commotion, but I think this year will be different. I anticipate Hyndman to be wheeling and dealing in order to put his stamp on the team.

• The veteran under-producers will be sent away by a trade or simply buying-out their contract.
• Schellas needs another centerback in order to play his preferred 4-4-2 line-up and also needs Wagner to step-up as a solid leftback. If he can’t than obviously a new player needs to be brought in.
• Schellas has himself mentioned that we need a creative #10. That’s not an easy order to fill, but I think an effort will be made anyway. Possible DP candidate?
• Finally, another proven striker couldn’t hurt, but that’s asking a whole lot.

So we need a CB, possibly a LB, a #10, and a good striker. Seems like we’re lacking in some places; thanks  Hitch and Morrow! Realistically, I see Schellas bringing in a defender and a midfielder while shipping off tow of our current poor performers (Alvarez, I’m looking at you). Another likely scenario is Ricardinho being sent back to Brazil and a replacement striker being brought in. I’m excited for this, you should be too!

Soak in that glory, baby. Three cheers all around, but two thoughts:

1. Isn’t Oscar overqualfied to be coaching 16 year old.
2. Sure are a lot of cooks in the FCD youth system; “Executive Director,” “Director of Player Development,” “Director of Coaching,” “Director of FCD Academy Development.” I just hope the broth doesn’t spoil…

I apologize for being away for such an extended period of time. Please forgive me. I am on a work assignment/vacation in New York City at the moment and haven’t found much time to blog. I watched the Open Cup game as well as the Houston draw and am glad that Schellas Hyndman has resorted back to the 3-5-2, even it isn’t his preferred formation. Saragosa as a left middie? C’mon. I also think he may be an OK/good coach, but the ultimate judgment will come when he starts making signings.

I also think Hitch has done a better job in recent weeks, but more on that later…

And finally…

***BREAKING NEWS***

Romanian powerhouse Steaua Bucharest is after our very own Juan Carlos Toja. So, I can’t read Romanian and 10 bucks says you can’t either, but I think it’s easy to deduct the subject of the article. Toja is all over Romanian Google. Even so, I think this will amount to a whole lotta nothing.

Cya soon cybermigos.

So I ended up to going to the Showdown in Chinatown and took some pictures and such, but can’t upload them. Sorry! However, I can tell you about them. Here are some of the highlights:

1. The back of Thierry Henry’s head.
2. The people standing up in front of me.
3. A poor quality picture of Steve Nash making a poor quality pass.
4. A bunch of people standing around a fence.

My biggest gripe about the match is the way they had people standing around the field. I guess the organizers didn’t expect too many people to show up, but there was about 750 people at the match. Maybe 2/3 of them could see what was going on. The sight lines sucked. Oh well… it was free. However, a cool development was that they were people in trees, on the top of playgrounds, and hanging onto fences to get a good view. It was like something out of a Boca Juniors match.

• The game itself was pretty fun. Maybe not good soccer, but very entertaining.
• The skill level was very mixed ranging from world-class to Claudio Reyna (ba-da-ding). But seriously…
• Henry was class, he didn’t try very hard, but dribbled around everyone and had fun. Kalou was just as good if not better.
• Baron Davis was equally entertaining. He wore air force ones, a baseball cap, and shades the whole game. He just putzed around knocking over people, kicking the ball into the crowd, and even accidentally scored a goal. He rounded the performance off with a couple handballs in the box. Additionally, whenever he touched the ball a guy would yell “I’m proud of you Baron!!!!! You’re doing a great job!!!!!”
• Steve Nash shouldn’t quit his day job. He’s a good amateur player, very fit with decent skills, but nothing special. I think he was trying harder than anyone else and didn’t stand out too much. Although he brought his game up towards the end of the match when everyone else stopped even pretending to be interested in winning.
• Robbie Fowler looked really old, like 40.
• The goalies made every save dramatic. I think they were related to Dario Sala.
• Dallas connection: Jason Kidd was pretty good. He had many assists as usual and worked hard on defense.
• Jozy Altidore, Kalau, and Berhalter all held back considerably (as did all the other pros).
• Leonardo Barbosa was probably the most soccer-skilled basketball player out there.
• Raja Bell pulled a Landon Donovan at the World Cup and did nada. He was seriously MIA.
• Rob Jones played defense and was pretty good. He was a big influence in his team’s win (I think they won).

Okay. Hasta la vista.

Maybe I’ve only been gone a few days, but it felt like decades. I didn’t see the New York game nor do I care to. From what I can gather, it was a walk(out) to forget. Which is convenient for me because I never remembered it in the first place. Get it?

Schellas Hyndman isn’t exactly instilling huge amounts of confidence within the masses. He better figure it out or we (the fans) will make nasty signs. He ain’t gonna be fired anytime soon folks… just deal and drink the $8 beers.

I think I am going to the clash of has-beens, never-weres, and still-got-its in Chinatown tomorrow evening. Until then, may the force be with y’all.

Schellas Hyndman is… gasp growing on me. Aside from his motivation schmuck (see I am in New York), his comments, collected by a journalist friend (wink, wink) of 3rdDegree’s are really exciting. The 4-4-2 is my personal favorite formation so I’m good with his tactics and the idea of having more than one person attacking is weird. Who would have thought of that? Certainly not Steve Morrow. But, its a really good weird and I think it could work.

1-0 to the guys I was routing for. Just when it seemed like a U-14 girls’ team could beat us, Chicago comes to town and boy do we have their number.

• How many break-away chances did we have? How many did we finish? Yikes. Still, much improved.
• Andre Rocha is a great passer, we know this already, but he also has a killer right foot capable of delivering laser shots that vaporize goalkeepers… and yet we rarely see him use it.
• Arturo Alvarez needs to go on a ten day trek in the Australian Outback surviving only on his wits and the water he can squeeze out of a cactus. Surely that would end his terrible play as of late.
• Blanco withered in the heat and this is one of the first times in recent memory that FC Dallas actually used the heat to their advantage. Props to Feruzzi!
• It’s official (and who doubted it), Hyndman is the nuevo sheriff in town. Good luck, but I doubt this ends well.

Tomorrow I leave for the Big Apple… no more live FCD games ’til August. With the way they’ve been playing recently, that might be more of a blessings than a curse… I’m playing. I miss you my beloved RED STRIPES.

Ok… cya. And have a great week.

The mysterious Abdus Ibrahim has been traded to Toronto FC for personal reasons. We received conditional draftpicks and latched on a hefty sell-on clause as insurance. Overall, classy move by Toronto, they could have squeezed us a lot tighter. Shame that it didn’t work out, all reports were predicting Ibrahim to become a top player.

One question though, if Ibee’s family is in Minnesota, how does moving to Toronto make him closer to them? Why didn’t we loan him out to the Thunder and keep our man? Oh well…