With Sporting KC set to take on FC Dallas Saturday evening at Sporting Park, we caught up with journalist and FC Dallas radio broadcaster Steve Davis to preview the match. The match will kick off on KMCI-TV and the SKC TV Network 7:30 p.m. CT.
JF: What changes has new head coach Oscar Pareja brought to FC Dallas and what's his philosophy for how he wants the team to play?
SD: I don't think stylistically we saw too much last week from what Oscar Pareja is trying to do versus what Schellas Hyndman was trying to do before. They both wanted the ball on the ground, possession oriented, short passing game. They want to play through a playmaker. And that's your difference. This year the big difference is in personnel. Last year, David Ferreira just kind of ran out of gas. By mid-way through the year, he just didn't look anything at all like the former MVP. So that possession game just wasn't working because you've got to have one guy in there that really can control a game, slow the game down for everybody, really work the angles, change the angles through his own positioning and by moving the ball around himself. And he wasn't doing that. Last week, Mauro Diaz did that. He's a young guy, looks a little bit like -- at this point in his career -- maybe a poor man's Javier Morales. And I don't mean that to be insulting, I mean the guy is only 22 years old. He really put his foot on the game at a time when FC Dallas is really kind of a young team, kind of a young version of the team that was struggling a little bit 15 minutes in. Mauro Diaz just started getting on the ball every chance he got. The game settled down and because of that, they were able to win in Oscar Pareja's debut instead of a loss.
JF: What did you take away from FC Dallas' 3-2 win last weekend against Montreal?
SD: You can draw plenty of conclusions, you just have to understand the context. It's a long season: travel, lots of games, injuries. Sometimes we see that the team that you start with is not anything like the team that you finish with; sometimes it's not even like the team that you end up with in the middle of the year. So yes, you can draw conclusions but you just have to be sure their seen in context. I think what you take away from last week is that FC Dallas has right now a very young defense and I think the test they had last week against Montreal was one thing. I think the test that they're going to get in Sporting Kansas City in terms of not just defending guys like Graham Zusi and Claudio Bieler but I think playing out of the back under the pressure that they're going to see will be a lot different. Last week, we saw Montreal basically play with one forward and not even their best forward. Andrew Wenger played up front instead of Marco Di Vaio. This week you're going to get a lot different test from Kansas City. That said, I think the young guys they have playing right now - Kelyn Acosta, one of the homegrown products who's only 18; Moises Hernandez, centerback who made his first professional start and is another homegrown -- you take away that those guys had some very good moments and also some bad ones in some choices that they might not make later in their careers when they get a little bit more experience. That's the first thing you takeaway with an eye toward how they're going to react in a different environment on Saturday. The other thing is what I said before: Mauro Diaz is going to be a really terrific young playmaker in this league. Now, how does he deal with the fouling? How does he deal with the travel going forward? How does he deal with the training day in and day out in a long Texas summer? These are the things that will tell how we feel about him in the long run. In the short run, we look at his first game and it was -- if not for a couple of performances around the league like Will Bruin in Houston or Nick Rimando for Real Salt Lake -- on another week, it might be a Player of the Week performance that he gave last week. That's the other thing you take away.
JF: How do view the matchup of Dallas' backline against the Sporting KC attack?
SD: I think Oscar Pareja needs to give those young FC Dallas defenders a lot of protection. I think we'll probably see a guy like JeVaughn Watson, who doesn't give you a whole lot of dynamic attacking but he's going to protect his young right back. He played as a right midfielder last week or some kind of right-sided attacker from a withdrawn position if you look at it like a 4-3-3. I think Pareja will attempt to give those guys back there a lot of protection. The problem is that Adam Moffat is coming off of an injury and Hendry Thomas is coming off an ankle sprain. Those are your guys that would really be the guys in the middle to provide a lot of defensive stability alongside Andrew Jacobson, who is the other guy playing center midfield. That's where they're going to run into problems. If those guys are ready and can really perform -- not just play at 80% -- it's a little better for FC Dallas. If not, honestly it could be a long afternoon. Those are the guys best to give the defense a lot of protection and those are the guys that right now are a little iffy injury wise.
JF: On the flipside, how do you see the FC Dallas attack matching up against the Sporting KC defense and particular the centerback pairing of Aurelien Collin and Matt Besler?
SD: That's probably the league's best centerback pairing. I don't see anybody that matches up real well against them. I think (Blas) Perez is a smart player and a tough player. He's a lot like Alvaro Saborio in some ways. He's a little better with the ball at his foot. Just like we saw Saborio in the championship game, you give him an opening and he can punish you. That said, again, there's just not a whole lot of guys that match up all that well against (Matt) Besler and (Aurelien) Collin. I think Mauro Diaz will have to manage that physical play. He'll have to manage the pressure that he didn't see last week. Just like it's a different test for the defense, it's a different test for him. He's not going to have quite as much time on the ball and he's going to find himself outnumbered sometimes in the middle because of Kansas City's very well structured and very compact defense. Look, it's tough when you go to Sporting Park, isn't it? The place is going to be sold out. Kansas City is the best defensive team in the league and I don't see anybody going up there and having a big day. What you do is you try to have a good day and hope that as a visitor you can take a goal or two and come out with some kind of result.
JF: What are your thoughts on Sporting KC and what you've seen from this so far this year?
SD: We'll know a little bit more about Sporting Kansas City and what they're really going to look like this year after Saturday. What we have seen so far is a match on the artificial turf in Seattle and those games just always look different to me. Because of the turf, they just don't have the kind of rhythm and the kind of reason to it and they don't produce the kind of clarity that you can sometimes use to draw the conclusions. And then you have a CONCACAF Champions League game and those matches are different for some different reasons. I think we've had a couple of different outliers this year and if you try to put together some kind of early assessment of Sporting Kansas City at this point, I think you'd be barking up the wrong tree. Maybe somebody smarter can do it, but I can't just yet.
JF: And finally, what are your thoughts and predictions on Saturday's match?
SD: Kansas City has to manage one element very well. This is a little bit of a sandwich game, isn't it? They're half-way through the CONCACAF Champions League series and they should be able to manage against an FC Dallas team that has got some injury issues and two very young guys on the backline. That said, they're not going to manage if they don't have the right mentality; if they don't have the right approach. And that means really being locked in and not getting distracted by the very important games in CCL. I know Kansas City is putting a lot of emphasis on these Champions League games and rightly so, I'm glad to see it, but they can't forget about the one in the middle.