2022 MLS Previews: FC Dallas, Orlando City SC, Sporting Kansas City
/We’ll be publishing three team previews every weekday until the MLS season opens on Saturday, February 26, 2022. You can find all of them here!
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FC Dallas: Dallas Sellers Club
By Sean Steffen
It’s fun to think about Dallas.
From an organizational standpoint, FC Dallas manages to do a ton right. Just ask whoever’s job it is to count the reported 30 million dollars of combined fees they brought in moving Ricardo Pepi (20), Bryan Reynolds (20), and Tanner Tessman (19) to the top flights of Europe last year. The fact of the matter is, there isn’t a single team in MLS that shouldn’t be envious of what Dallas accomplished on the sales front last year, and the youth development set-up they have in place to manage something so impressive. In many ways, FC Dallas are standard-bearers in this league.
On the flip side, only Montreal, Vancouver, Chicago, Houston, and Cincinnati have managed a worse points per game rate than FC Dallas over the last 3 seasons (stripping expansion teams that don’t have 3 seasons). When you couple this with the historical fact that they have yet to win MLS Cup despite being in the league since the beginning, it becomes clear that, in a lot of ways, FC Dallas are not standard-bearers in this league.
While this is specifically a preview for Dallas this season, it’s worth pointing out that a big reason for this disconnect in sales and results comes from a series of signings over the years that simply haven't worked out. For as good as Dallas has been at selling players, they simply haven't been good at buying them.
With so much talent leaving for Europe and so little success replacing them, it’s no wonder the last three years have gone the way they have for Dallas in terms of results.
Offense
Goals added was not a fan of the FC Dallas roster, in general, in 2021. Of Dallas players who played more than 1000 minutes last year, only three added value above average, the top man of which has left the club. Yep. You guessed it. Ryan Hollingshead.
A simple statistical diagnostic on the game model doesn’t fare any better. Dallas were a very back-foot-oriented team when it came to possession. No team had a higher percentage of their touches in the defensive third than Dallas, and only Cincinnati had a lower percentage of their touches in the final third than Dallas. This, predictably, made them one of the slowest teams in build-up speed in MLS–3rd slowest in speed to goal, to be exact.
When a team isn’t getting into the final third a lot, or quickly, it stands to reason that said team needs to make up for this by making the chances they do create high-quality ones.
An easy way to see if a team is doing this is to look at how they are putting balls into the box. For instance, there are roughly 67 crosses per cross-assist in MLS, while that number is just 37 when you look at non-cross passes that end in the box.
Dallas are 21st in the league in both categories by volume, as they don’t get into the final third very often. More illuminating, however, is looking at these passes as a percentage of final third touches. Dallas play the 12th-most crosses and 15th-most non-cross box ending passes per final third touch in Major League Soccer, respectively. Middle of the pack.
In short, low volume without efficiency equals low numbers, which was the problem with Dallas’ attack last year. As stated before, while FC Dallas certainly take a hit for moving so many good players to Europe, this isn’t the whole picture. FC Dallas has, time and again, failed to bring in impactful attacking talent to offset these losses.
Which brings us to this off-season and the club record fee that FC Dallas have paid for 19-year-old Alan Velasco. Is he that guy?
Without a lot of data to look at, I’d only be speculating from clips, but the idea of Velasco is intriguing. If you are with me so far that Dallas are very good at developing young talent and not so good at bringing in guys in their prime, then Dallas breaking the bank on a 19-year-old is intriguing at the very least, because it’s a pivot. Furthermore, it’s a pivot towards something adjacent to another thing they are very good at—identifying young talent.
It is not the same, however, as developing a player, so it will be interesting to see how this project goes for them. Is Alan the next in a line of disappointing FC Dallas signings? Is he a guy that can step in, day one, and make this team ready to compete for the playoffs? Is Velasco even a long-term player, or is this part of some pivot in their sales strategy, investing sales of home-grown talent into South American youngsters they can then use their European connections to sell at a profit?
It's impossible to know, but that’s part of what makes Dallas so intriguing.
Defense
But improving chance creation efficiency isn’t the only project Dallas must undertake. Dallas gave up the 7th-most xG on the season, and when you look at how they gave it up, the struggles with cross defending, individual defending, and giving up penalty kicks paints a picture of a defensive struggling.
Dallas fans will be quick to point out that Hedges was banged up throughout the year, and will be hopeful that a healthy Hedges rights this ship. While this may very well be the case, it's worth noting that if Dallas aren't able to tighten up these numbers, it probably won't matter how well the new offensive pieces in Velasco and Arriola (and let's not forget a potentially healthy Pomykal) perform, because they probably aren't making the playoffs with leaks like this.
Another factor in all this is Jimmy Mauer. In 2020, Maurer was good at stopping shots. In 2021, Maurer was not good at stopping shots.
If Dallas want to succeed, they’ll probably need a return to form from their man between the sticks.
Conclusions
This is the part of the article where I come to conclusions about whether or not Dallas will be successful, but therein lies the problem.
Stephen Colbert once said, "If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.” And while I know this was meant as a joke, it can be argued that Dallas embodies it, genuinely, and have been very successful doing so.
If Dallas miss the playoffs but successfully use the season to leverage a sale of someone like Pomykal, Ferreira or Velasco, you can't exactly sit on the sidelines and call it an organizational failure because they've almost single handedly forged a path to success in this league that's independent of success in the table. This is not to say that Dallas don't want to make the playoffs. I'm merely suggesting that, if you don't keep this perspective in mind when they don't, you are doing them a disservice.
See, it's fun to think about Dallas.
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Orlando City SC: All Pato the plan
By Ian L.
The Orlando City Soccer Club is kind of decent right now. This is incredibly upsetting to me, a person who enjoys mocking Orlando City. It’s a Shakesperian-tier betrayal. An absolute travesty for a man like me who traffics in cheap jokes with easy punchlines. Competence? (I growl in a Logan Roy voice) How f***** DAAAAAARE you? All that to say that things are looking upwards, and though it would be incorrect to declare them a top-tier MLS side, no longer are they the very concept of the archetypal “Florida Man” distilled for purity and doled out over a soccer pitch.
Let’s get into it.
2021 Remarks
So, not bad here. The underlying numbers are right around the upper-mid table, which is more or less where I’d stick Orlando if I had to make a table based on an eye test. xG is a little bit worrying, and Orlando were definitely on the fortunate side of the finishing column, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before and doesn’t automatically mean that a regression is imminent. However, the eight penalties they were awarded this season tied them for the second highest in the league, so that’s not likely repeatable (unless you’re Atlanta). But hey, they only converted five, so, there’s whatever that is.
Orlando lined up nominally in a 4-3-2-1 last season (BOLD CHOICE!), but they folded into more of a 3-4-3 during build up/attacking phases. Nani took on a lion’s share of the attacking effort and it’s going to be difficult to replace him and Dike all at once. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Pareja is tasked with this season.
Significant Exits
Nani - Nani arrived to many a rolled eyeball as he seemed like the kind of cynical pick up that desperate teams make when they’re out of ideas. As it turns out, Nani was pretty good! His 0.55 xG+xA per game was the 12th highest for a winger during his time in MLS with numbers comparable to Jordan Morris, Sebastian Blanco, and Johnny Russell. I think he also won a skills competition or something, but I absolutely refuse to be bothered to look that up.
Daryl Dike - One of life’s great mysteries is how Daryl Dike dropped to fifth in the 2020 Superdraft. It’s not as though the players taken ahead of him have had bad careers by any metric, but it took everybody I know exactly seven seconds of watching video of Dike to know that he was the best player in his class, and could help a number of MLS teams almost immediately. But hey, I’m just a stats and jokes blog bro. Anyway, the pick wound up being a financial windfall for the Lions, but they never really got the full benefit of Dike on the field, because he was off on loan in England or injured for a large portion of tenure. A tough pill to swallow to be sure, but that 10 million dollar transfer fee makes it go down a lot easier.
Chris Mueller - Chris Mueller is another good player that is no longer with Orlando City. I don’t really have a lot more to say on it. Bummer for Orlando, good for Chris Mueller.
Significant Arrivals
Orlando City has had a very busy summer on the market, and they’ve brought in some pretty enticing pieces.
Facundo Torres - A young, highly regarded midfielder from Penarol. He represents Orlando City’s highest-ever transfer fee paid for a player, and in my opinion, will wind up being very good value for the fee paid. It’s very hard to get advanced data for South American leagues, so I can only tell you what I know based on what I’ve seen and what I’ve been told by people who know these leagues. So to answer the question you really want to know:
Yeah, but do he ball tho?
He do ball. He really do.
Ercan Kara - Ercan Kara comes to sunny Florida from whatever kind of climes they have in Austria. Cold? I don’t know anything about Austria, and as such the following scouting report is cobbled together from highlight videos and whatever else I can find using Google.
Kara seems like a legitimately good striker. He uses both feet and his head very well. He’s a strong man, and he’s tall. If he can get service, he can do the goals.
Yeah, but do he ball tho?
It looks as though he do indeed ball.
Cesar Araujo - Another Uruguayan import, and another young player with a lot of upside. He will be in competition with Junior Urso to line-up alongside scandalously unheralded Orlando City workhorse Sebastian Mendez. Araujo looks like a pretty decent player, but he’s probably more of a speculative player than Torres.
Yeah, but do he ball tho?
I’m confident he will ball someday. I am not sure how much he will ball this season.
So, what’s the outlook?
As always, any time you bring in a designated player, you’re making a gamble. Some of these gambles have better odds than others, but there’s still an inherent risk to it. When you’re bringing two or three at once, well, that makes those odds longer, even if you don’t need all three to hit big immediately to have a decent season. I’d be highly skeptical of Orlando becoming an elite force in the Eastern Conference, but weirder things have happened. I think we’re looking at another postseason run here as the goal, and I think they have the ability to do it. Pareja is a good coach, Mendez is a very good midfielder, and that defensive unit doesn’t get nearly the love it deserves. This year might be a bit soon for getting hopes super high, but I expect good things from this team in the next couple of seasons provided they stay the course and don’t do anything crazy like re-sign Alexandre Pato or something.
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Sporting Kansas City: Come Salloi with me
By Jared Young
One challenge for leaders is to know exactly when to react to the latest data. Does the data support a new trend that requires change, is it just a probable outcome in a longer normal trend? Sports fans seem to award a champion or demand change after every game, depending on the outcome. But they don’t lead. The team’s management has a much tougher job, especially when the people who pay the bills are volatile fans. Bring one-and-done playoff games into the mix, and the job is significantly tougher.
This offseason has been one of those leadership moments for Sporting Kansas City. They have been one of the most consistent franchises in the league, perhaps the best franchise overall, but their recent playoff performances have been disappointing. Time for big change? Or stay the course?
The 2021 version of Sporting KC finished 3rd in the Western Conference last season. Since their last MLS Cup victory in 2013, last season was their sixth playoff appearance in the last seven seasons. They play a modern version of the game, with a high-pressure defense and offense designed to control possession. This visualization by Paul Harvey (@Thundering165) paints that picture clearly.
Defense is their calling card. Since 2013, Sporting KC have had the 3rd-best defense in the league in terms of expected goals allowed per game (4th in actual goals against per game). That’s led them to the 3rd-best expected goal difference in the league (7th in actual goal difference).
However, their playoff results haven’t measured up to their regular season success. Since 2013’s MLS Cup run, they are 3-7-2 (W-L-D) in the playoffs, with a single trip to the Western Conference Finals. That same vaunted defense has let them down lately too. Over the last five playoff games, they’ve allowed twelve goals.
And so here they are. Do the playoff results indicate this team isn’t built for ultimate success? Or is this MLS playoff system just too much of a crapshoot to make such a judgment?
Alter or stay the course? Sporting KC had to answer that question this offseason.
The Changes
Sporting Kansas City parted with two players that had significant minutes in 2021. Midfielder Ilie Sanchez and left back Luis Espinoza are out. The team has brought in some safe, MLS-ready replacements in defender Ben Sweat and defensive midfielder Uri Rosell.
Rosell returns to the side he left four seasons ago, to man the middle along with Roger Espinoza, Gadi Kinda, and Remi Walter. Rosell will instantly establish himself given his prior service with the club, but this isn’t the move that will change the trajectory of the season.
The real opportunity to change the fate has been set on a collection of newly acquired international youngsters. Logan Ndenbe was the first signing, a 21-year-old left back from the French second division who is working through the Belgium international levels. His competition, Ben Sweat, is battling back from an ACL injury that kept him out of his last season with Austin FC. Ndenbe seems like potentially more than insurance for Sweat, but either way, Sporting KC should be able to maintain quality at this position.
Sporting KC similarly fortified the future of their defense by signing 20-year-old-center back Robert Voloder. Voloder is in the German international youth system and was playing in the Slovenian first division. Whether or not he can crack the presumed starting pair of Andreu Fontas and Nicolas Isimat-Mirin has yet to be seen, but he should provide solid depth with an eye to the future.
Sporting KC turned to offense for third and fourth key signings. Left winger Marinos Tzionis is a 20-year-old coming from the Cyprus national team and top club Omonia Nicosia.
It’s a stretch to think that Daniel Salloi’s position on the left forward position in Vermes’ 4-3-3 is in jeopardy. Salloi was an MLS Best XI “snub” according to Andrew Weibe, but Tzionis does provide insurance down the road, as Salloi enters the final year of his contract.
Forward Nikola Vujnovic recently signed on with a one-year loan from Montenegro. Like the other international signings, the 25-year-old doesn’t project to immediately start, with Khiry Shelton at the top of the formation. Vujnovic does represent needed depth, though, as striker Alan Pulido will miss the entire 2022 season with a knee injury. If Vujnovic can equal Pulido’s eight-goal contribution from last season, this signing will be a success.
At a high level, Sporting KC has made a series of shrewd moves focused on adding quality young depth to the squad, at what we can assume are fair prices. But the clear theme is that the team returns largely as they were last season, with some tweaks around the edges.
Sporting Kansas City will return mostly the same quality side, playing a modern possession-oriented style, with a top defense. They’ll very likely make their twentieth playoff appearance in twenty-seven tries. (Yawn?)
Their story will once again be written in the playoffs. Does this team have a fatal flaw that prevents them from winning it all, or can this youth infusion provide something that was missing? Is it simply an example of leaders looking past the recent data and playing the long game, maintaining a solid foundation, and waiting for the MLS Cup Playoff lottery machine to pull the #1 ball?