FC Dallas vs. Vancouver Whitecaps: Player Grades
Time to see which players made the grade and helped FC Dallas earn a point in Canada.
FC Dallas traveled to Canada and earned a hard-fought point against the Vancouver Whitecaps.
Maarten Paes: (8) You can’t really fault Maarten here. He saved all 4 shots he faced from the Vancouver attack. It was the one shot he never saw coming from his own teammate that got through.
Marco Farfan: (6) A quiet yet solid match for Farfan who looked to be struggling with his fitness towards the end of the game.
Nkosi Tafari: (9) You have to be excited at the way Nkosi has played in his first 2 matches of the season. Nkosi has simply been dominant in the air and has been a complete beast in duels. That assist was simply the icing on the cake for a “Man of the Match” performance.
Sebastien Ibeagha: (7) A much better performance this time around for Sebastien, who finished with a team leading 6 clearances and matched Nkosi’s aerial dominance (4 aerials won). I did not have “center back pair combining for a goal” on my FC Dallas bingo card.
Emma Twumasi: (6) Another solid performance for Emma who’s still not as involved in the attack as we’d like him to be.
Edwin Cerrillo: (6) On the surface, nothing Edwin did against Vancouver stood out. Since nothing stood out, Cerrillo’s mistakes were far more obvious to pick out and likely had some FC Dallas fans yelling for him to get removed from the match. It should thus surprise you that Cerrillo was one of the driving forces behind FC Dallas controlling possession, leading the team in touches (96), pass attempts (83), and pass completion (88%). All the criticisms about Cerrillo’s play still stand — insufficient ball progression, not a dominant defender, etc. But he did what was asked of him, and he did it well. This is the kind of performance that a young player can build on going forward.
Sebastian Lleget: (5) It’s not that Lleget played bad. Not at all! It’s that Lleget disappeared for large portions of the match. Not surprising for a player that is clearly yet to reach 100% fitness.
Paxton Pomykal: (7) Watching the Whitecaps hacking Paxton with impunity was just frustrating. Paxton endured and managed not to become frustrated himself, en route to having a good performance, leading all attackers with 81 touches (I swear he was hacked on every single touch), 66 pass attempts, and a match-leading 95.5% passing accuracy.
Alan Velasco: (7) Alan recieved the same treatment as Paxton, getting hacked or pulled on every time he touched the ball. Alan appeared to handle it better, and looked dangerous, getting 2 shot attempts and 2 key passes.
Paul Arriola: (5) I can tell you about all the good things Paul did, but it doesn’t really matter, cause at he end of the day, that own goal really hurt. Try as I might, Paul hobbling off the field and scoring against his own team is all I can remember.
Jesus Ferreira: (5) Like we said last week, Ferreira’s grade tends to depend on whether he scored or not. When he doesn’t score, his bad tendencies rear their ugly heads, none more frustrating than watching him drop too far back trying to find the ball and being out of position when attacking opportunities materialized.
Bench: For my moneu, both Martinez (6) and Geovane Jesus (6) played well off the bench. Obrian and Junqua both came on too late for me to grade them.