FC Dallas Tries to Survive Orlando Lockdown

FC Dallas has been in Orlando for one week and it has already been a wild one.

The team traveled to Florida last Saturday by private charter for the MLS is Back tournament. Everyone was excited about the possibility of playing soccer and getting back on track with the disappointing 2020 season that was derailed by the Coronavirus.

The plan for FC Dallas was to go to Orlando, win the group stage and make a run at the championship in the blistering heat and humidity of “The Happiest Place on Earth” and return with six regular-season points and a spot in the 2021 Concacaf Champions League. It was nice to see the smiling faces — or what we assumed were smiling faces behind the masks — of the players again as they disembarked from the buses and went into the hotel. It was going to be six glorious weeks at Disney World, complete with luxurious rooms, swimming pools, golf courses, delicious meals prepared by some of the world’s top chefs, and immaculate fields on which to play The Beautiful Game.

What they got instead was something completely different. At least so far.

FC Dallas takes temperature — *Photo: —*

In four days, FC Dallas reported ten (nine players and a coach) positive cases of Covid-19. The team had to go on basically round-the-clock lockdown as the infected players were moved to another part of the hotel and the healthy players quarantined to their individual rooms. Viral social media posts were shared of “lunches” consisting of limp sandwiches, boring fruit cups, and bottled water.

But let’s not dwell on the bad; Let’s try to find a way to make this experience as positive as possible.

Several players are making the best of a bad situation by feeding birds the remains of soggy bread and hosting DJ parties from hotel balconies. But since the players are locked down for 12 or so hours a day, it might be fun to come up with a list of lively ideas the players can try as they while away the time in isolation.

How About Some of These Ideas

Learn to Whittle

A good beginning whittling project might be to take the soap, the one shaped like Mickey Mouse, and shape it into a shiv or shank. Nobody knows for sure the difference between a shiv and a shank and it doesn’t matter. The purpose is merely decorative, like a Samurai sword hanging in the den or White Claws. It will just be a unique keepsake from the time in Orlando.

Lots of people buy mouse-ear hats and duck feet house slippers, but very few have a homemade shiv with a Mickey Mouse head and sharp, pointy legs held up by suspenders.

Make Your Own Wine

Making craft beer in the basement has become quite a cottage industry. Why not take the downtime to make some, as the French might say, “eau de toilette vin” or toilet water wine. Just grab some pieces of fruit from each day’s “lunch” — the best pieces will be the watermelon, red grapes, and honeydew — and throw them together with two packets of Splenda.

Mix it together in the back of the toilet and wait. It might take a while for the fruit and Splenda to make magic. To “flatten the curve,” so to speak, add three bottles of Jose Cuervo from the minibar. After a couple of weeks, the concoction should be pretty potent, but of course, undrinkable.

Instead of imbibing the Cocktail de Commode, it might be better to find a way to fill the water bottles of Western Conference foes. While it shouldn’t harm the other team, it could make for some interesting second halves.

Learn How to Give Yourself Tattoos

The only tools needed to create beautiful quarantine tattoos are a sharp object — try some of the other Mickey Mouse soaps — and some ink. For the ink, try ordering some flowers to the room and crushing the stamens into a colorful powder mixture.

Take the powder and mix it with a liquid like water, Jose Cuervo, or, perhaps, a little dab of the lavatory libations.