FC Dallas Can Enter This Offseason With Strength
The sense of optimism and possibility in these final weeks of 2025 is night and day to where FC Dallas was at the end of 2024.
A year ago, FC Dallas fans were exhausted and deflated. The team fired Nico Estevez midway through the season after a dismal run of results, turning to former player and assistant coach Peter Luccin. Luccin did improve the team’s play, but the squad finished the year in 11th place, out of the playoffs. The roster had few bright spots. The locker room was a mess. There wasn’t a ton of reason for hope.
What followed last winter was a gutting of the roster, a turnover in anticipation of a new head coach and a culture reset.
Fast forward to our present day, despite FC Dallas enduring another Major League Soccer campaign with its fair share of drama and unpredictability, the former Burn clawed their way back into the playoffs with a resurgent tactical approach. No, they didn’t persevere past the Vancouver Whitecaps, but they showed fight and improvement with a roster that is still clearly in progress. The shift in quality and identity, clear progress, reveals just how stronger a position the whole organization is going into 2025.
And that is ultimately a good thing.
Why is this team in a better place?
For one, Eric Quill has answered a lot of questions about his lack of experience at the Major League Soccer level and what he would bring to Frisco. It’s refreshing to have a coach with strong ties to the organization, who clearly loves working in Frisco, and who believes in his players. Quill did that, and he was pragmatic in the midst of a season when the no. 1 plan wasn’t working (hello, Lucho Acosta). No, FC Dallas wasn’t playing pretty football and controlling possession, but they were getting results. That matters.
I’ll be super honest about this after all my years watching FC Dallas - this club is always going to work best with a coach who is able to work with less. Yes, Dallas is spending more at times. Petar Musa’s acquisition is a big sign of hopefully more to come, but they need to invest in young players and develop guys who need the backing and support of their coach. And it will be successful in this league.
Second, we legitimately have some quality players in key positions to build around. Shaq Moore and Osaze Urhoghide are starters in this league. Michael Collodi and Maarten Paes make picking a starting goalkeeper difficult. Christian Cappis and Kaick are solid midfielders to work around. Petar Musa is a great striker. Outside of that, for once, we have a smattering of quality that gives the team options, even as some guys need to figure out how to take the next step (Logan Farrington, Bernard Kamungo, Nolan Norris, Patrickson Delgado, etc) and others will be workable veterans (Ramiro, Anderson Julio, Paxton Pomykal, etc).
We aren’t trying to rebuild an entire roster - FC Dallas can go into this offseason and try to find 2-3 pieces that help bolster the vision that Quill has as fill in things around the edges.
Third, we haven’t seen the best yet. I don’t think Musa and Farrington starting together is the vision that Quill has for this team. Yes, we want to see more of that mentality that the head coach has sought to instill, but imagine where this team could be if they could play like they did from July to October the whole year.
All of that puts the team in a position of strength - confident that they can find the players and make the sorts of decisions that point to a strong 2026. And dare I say it, a year with title aspirations.