Prepare your rage. Is it prepared? OK, great.
Welcome back to the Guardian’s MLS Power Rankings, where I have a beef with your specific team and your specific team alone. Now, as a reminder, these aren’t your standard, run-of-the-mill power rankings. We’re still ranking teams from worst to first. But along with the rankings, we’re diving deep into a handful of teams from around the league who are doing particularly interesting things.
The (predictable) worst-case scenario
28. Austin FC
26. Chicago Fire
25. Colorado Rapids
24. FC Dallas
Asier Illarramendi scoring FC Dallas’ first goal of the season and putting on a giant cowboy hat during the postgame celebrations feels like a distant memory. In reality, it was less than a month ago that Illarramendi and Dallas kicked off their campaign with three points.
But plenty has changed since then. And it hasn’t changed for the better, with the club now on a three-game losing streak.
The 34-year-old Spanish midfielder has only played 135 of a possible 360 minutes this year while dealing with an injury. Paxton Pomykal, the preferred partner for Illarramendi in the middle, has only played seven minutes this season due to injury. Fitness issues were always on the table for Nico Estévez’s preferred central midfield pairing in 2024. According to Transfermarkt, Illarramendi missed 94 games during his final five years in Spain. Pomykal hasn’t started more than 20 games in a single season of his FC Dallas career.
The predictable worst-case scenario in midfield, then, has arrived in Dallas.
Without a reliable double pivot to propel the team’s new 3-4-3, FC Dallas have struggled on both sides of the ball. It’s early days, but they have the fourth-worst expected goal differential per 90 minutes in MLS with -0.51, according to FBref.
Rotation players being drafted into starting central midfield roles has put added strain on the backline. Center-back was an area of concern for Dallas before this year began – Nkosi Tafari is the only player you feel good about starting in that position group. But where, I ask, is the help from midfielders Sebastian Lletget and Patrickson Delgado on this goal from the Vancouver Whitecaps on Saturday?
It’s truly woeful defending from a team that has far too many moving parts.
Trying to adjust to a new formation (one that…