Dustin Nation

Andre Zanotta plus Big Podcast News

March 23, 2021 Dustin Nation 01:04:40

The 2021 DSS season kicks off with exciting news about the podcast, including adding Nico Mendez to the team!

Dustin, Tristan, Jonathan and Nico then walk through the FC Dallas off-season roster moves and preseason schedule.

To close out the episode FC Dallas Technical Director, Andre Zanotta, joined the crew to talk about scouting, homegrowns, the latest signings, and the decision to trade Barrios. He even teased a potential new signing!

2020 Season Review with Jon Arnold

December 9, 2020 Dustin Nation 1:12:03

Dallas Morning News reporter Jon Arnold dropped by to help the guys talk about the playoff loss in Seattle and put a bow on the absurdity that was the 2020 season.

They answer questions like:
Was the season a success? Did Luchi progress in year two? Which players increased their stock values? Which players had forgettable 2020’s? Is there hope going into 2021?

Don’t miss it!

Playoff Match Buildup: FC Dallas at Portland Timbers

November 18, 2020 Dustin Nation 51:36

Dustin, Tristan and Jonathan walk you through everything you need to know about FC Dallas’ 1st round playoff matchup in Portland against the Timbers!

What to expect from Portland? Will Mora be allowed to play after spending time with Chile during the international break? Would you you start Bressan or Reto? Who should play on the wing? Pepi or Jara?

All these questions answered, PLUS our take on the Houston Dynamo (FC) rebrand!

Decision Day Doldrums for FC Dallas in 3-0 Loss to Minnesota

November 9, 2020 Dustin Nation 33:57

FC Dallas travelled to Minnesota for a match that could have seen them finish the regular season anywhere from 2nd place to 7th place. It wasn’t the absolute worst outcome to Decision Day, but FC Dallas lost yet another away match.

Dustin and Jonathan chat about the match and what it means for FC Dallas’ 2020 MLS Cup Playoff future.

Nashville, RSL, and El Matador’s Luis Dollar

October 26, 2020 Dustin Nation 00:50:17

Dustin and Jonathan reluctantly take a look at the 3-0 loss in Nashville, the 0-0 draw in Salt Lake, and the themes that have emerged from these latest 2 away matches.

Then, El Presidente de El Matidor, Luis Dollar joins the show to talk about how the season’s working out, issues with security, moving supporters groups to the Southwest corner of Toyota Stadium, and much more!

El Matador Twitter: https://twitter.com/ElMatadorFCD

Tactical Analysis: FC Dallas vs Sporting Kansas City

October 19, 2020 Dustin Nation

FC Dallas hosted Sporting Kansas City on Wednesday night after a weekend off due to a COVID outbreak with Minnesota United. From the start Peter Vermes’ side looked to frustrate FC Dallas, rather than outright going for the win. They obviously saw FC Dallas struggle against Houston’s bunker and looked to exploit the same weakness.

Thankfully for FC Dallas, it seems as if Luchi Gonzalez has also been working out ways to break down a compact, deep-lying defense. Let’s take a look at how they managed to finally create quality scoring chances and even score a goal against a defense set up like this.

Balls Into The Box From Deep

Luchi loves himself some methodical buildup play. Unfortunately, this allows defenses to get set up and become more compact as the ball progresses into their end, thus making it harder for FC Dallas to get the ball into dangerous areas. FC Dallas has routinely struggled to get meaningful penetration into bunkered defense. These teams willingfully scede possession on the perimeter of their defensive blocks, knowing that they’ve got the numbers inside the block to cut off passes and sufficiently mark FC Dallas’ attackers.

In the past we’ve seen Gonzalez’ men attempt to counter this by dropping Ricaurte deep to be a creative part of that methodical buildup. However, in this match we saw both him and Tanner Tessmann dropping deep and sending balls to runners into the box.

Skipping lines like this prevented SKC from being able to collapse and become super-compact before they had to defend. Targeting the box on those long passes, rather than the wings, also prevented SKC from being able to set up defensively. The result was FC Dallas attackers with chances to get the ball in dangerous areas with minimal resistance.

Did something always come from these long balls into the box? No, but continually taking the ball into the final 1/3rd via the wings becomes predictable and allows the defenders to cheat a little bit — shifting to the side a little bit here and anticipating passing lanes there, being one-dimensional just makes things harder. Anything you can add to the arsenal to keep defenses honest is a good thing.

Overloading the Box

Another tactic that FC Dallas used to help break down the SKC bunker (and the one that ultimately provided the break-through) was getting an overwhelming number of players actually into the box to provide targets for the playmakers on the wings.

All too often, FC Dallas either has all of the players standing around the edge of the box waiting for some sort of cut-back pass, or they just have Jara in the box by himself with too many players committed to overloading the wings.

But towards the end of the 1st half, something amazing started happening. When crosses would come in from the wings, there were more FC Dallas players in the box than the defenders could handle!

You saw it again just a few minutes later, resulting in a Ryan Hollingshead goal. The buildup on the wings and the cross will get all the hype, but instead of watching the ball, watch it again and keep an eye on the box. FC Dallas committed enough players (4 again!) into the box that all SKC defenders were tied up marking them, allowing Hollingshead to slip into the box on the backside, unmarked, just in time for Bryan Reynolds to pick him out with the cross.

That having been said, FC Dallas was also vulnerable to this tactic as they looked to hold onto the lead late in the game. It’s a balancing act between bringing midfielders into the box to mark players, and opening up too much space in the dangerous areas just outside of the box.

Love Song to Tanner Tessmann 

This was arguably my favorite match from Tanner Tessmann yet. He got the start in the #6 position (Central Defensive Midfielder), presumably to give Thiago Santos a rest, and he made the absolute most of it. Rather than describing it all or gushing over him, I present to you a collection of Tessmann moments that stood out to me during the match. They’ll do the talking.

This one was so fun, it made this article twice!

Tanner’s not a finished product by any means, but I’m excited to watch him keep growing as a professional!

FC Dallas Halts Winless Streak With Win Against Sporting Kansas City

October 16, 2020 Dustin Nation 42:56

Dustin and Jonathan talk about the recent Reggie Cannon interview in The Crack Podcast that has fans outraged. They also break down the 1-0 win over Kansas Cit, Tanner Tessmann starting as the CDM, and how FC Dallas was able to break down SKC’s low block.

Plus, they take a quick look ahead at what the end of the season might look like for FC Dallas.

Interview – John Nelson

October 1, 2020 Dustin Nation 20:51

FC Dallas left back, John Nelson, stopped by for a chat with Dustin.

They talked about John’s path to the pros, decision to leave UNC early, some of his famous friends, and much more!

Check it out!

FC Dallas beats SKC and Mid-Season Grades with Steve Davis

September 21, 2020 Dustin Nation 1:02:28

Steve Davis from the from the FC Dallas broadcast team joins Dustin and Jonathan to talk about the past few matches, as well as give the team a mid-season grade!

PLUS! Steve’s take on the Cobra exit, and he shares the Bobby Rhine story that he remembers every year on the anniversary of his death.

Don’t miss it!

Tactical Analysis: FC Dallas vs Houston Dynamo

September 16, 2020 Dustin Nation

FC Dallas faced off against Houston Dynamo on Saturday night in the 2nd leg of the Texas Derby, and for FC Dallas it was a night and day difference from the 1st. Gone was the tepid, lethargic, and pressure absorbing team that traveled to Houston. In its place was a team that had a plan of attack…and a new powder keg of offensive firepower that helped ignite everyone around him.

You write up tactics and every team’s going to have a lot of potential for execution of tactics but at the end of the day at some point the tactics are not the factor. It’s about winning more duels, about making more plays, and we did that tonight and we need to use that as a reference in the next opportunity.

Luchi Gonzalez

After the match, Coach Gonzalez was quick to deflect any praise to his players, but those players wouldn’t be in the positions to win duels and make (amazingly awesome volley goal) plays without a plan.

Let’s talk about that plan.

Getting Playmakers Involved

When you bring players like Andres Ricaurte and Franco Jara into your club, you have to find ways to get them involved. 

In previous matches, FC Dallas has relied on attacking the opponent’s fullbacks and crossing the ball in from deep in the opponent’s defense in an attempt to get the ball to Jara or Jesus Ferriera. Too often, however, that just led to turnovers and frustrated attacking players.

So how then can FC Dallas get the ball to the new guys? Well, against Houston the game plan started with the transition and proceeded to take advantage of some key weaknesses in the way Houston plays.

The first key weakness the FC Dallas offensive game plan attempted to exploit is that Houston’s midfield tends to play very narrow. This allows for moments where there is a lot of space on the sidelines between Houston’s forward and back lines. Luchi really tried to take advantage of that space in transition. As soon as they regained possession, FC Dallas would one-two the ball past the Houston forward line and then quickly play the ball to whichever sideline had the most space available.


Then the race would be on as the winger-fullback pairs would work the ball up the sidelines as fast as they could. At this point, the tactics split between the left side and right side, so I’ll start with the left (because I think it’s more interesting).

In previous matches, the FC Dallas attack would work the ball as close to the endline as possible before making a play towards thegoal. Against Houston, however, Hollingshead and the left winger would barely probe the defense. Instead, as soon as they met resistance by the Houston back line, they cut inside to find Jara or Ricaurte.

As an added bonus (and the second key weakness that Luchi Gonzalez’ game plan looked to be trying to exploit), Houston’s RB has a tendency to overcommit going forward. This leaves their back line exposed and vulnerable to being stretched thin and overrun.

When the attack went down the right, the speed of Barrios and Reynolds made things a bit more straightforward. The game plan: exploit that same space that’s available on the left, then use speed to attack the Houston defense.

Both ways proved to be very effective in getting the ball into the hands of the players that have been brought in to be difference makers.

Let’s Talk About D, Baby

The FC Dallas defense has overall been very good in 2020. It was shaky in the absence of Matt Hedges and there are certainly things to work on, but it’s evident that Coach Gonzalez means what he has said about creating a base on solid defense and building off of it.

That having been said, let’s take a quick look at a couple of things.

Firstly, the space left in front of the defense by Santos and his partners continues to be a problem. I’ve documented it in almost every edition of this article, so I won’t waste bytes doing it again. Just know that it has not gone away.

Secondly, the partnership between Matt Hedges and Bryan Reynolds on the right side of the defense is still growing. Better communication between the two would have prevented or lessened opportunities from Houston. Frequently players snuck in between the two on the back side of where the ball was. This means the Houston players were behind Hedges and in front of Reynolds. I want to see Reynolds be more proactive and communicative in letting Hedges know that the player is there.

Lastly, and this is something I touched on last week, the players have a tendency to “turn off” on occasion and stop checking their surroundings.

At the very beginning of this clip, you can see a Houston player run out of frame to the left. That’s Reynold’s marker. When they both come back into frame, there’s way too much space between them. But then Santos gets caught ball watching and loses Manotas, who gets into the box to receive a pass from Reynolds’ man.

Again, I don’t want to be unfair to a defensive unit that has been overall very stingy, but if these things aren’t improved, it’s entirely possible that future opponents will be able to turn these issues into goals.

Keeping It Up

Now we’ve gotten a taste of how effective FC Dallas can be. Knowing how Luchi likes to try to adapt his tactics to opponents and situations, I doubt the days of the 5-3-2 and the defensive posturing are completely behind us, but it’s good to know that this side of the team exists. Let’s see what version of the team turns out against Colorado on Wednesday and how Luchi puts the players in position to let their individual skills show.