2026 FC Dallas Midseason Superlatives
With the first half of the season in the books and MLS play over for almost two months, it’s time to refocus and regroup.
Let’s take stock of where the Burn are at and dish out some superlatives at the midway point.
Most Valuable Player: Petar Musa
Pretty easy choice, right? Assuming he stays for the full season, Musa looks likely to smash the FCD single-season scoring record. Through 15 games (he’s actually only played in 13), Musa has 12 goals and 2 assists, directly contributing to almost half of Dallas’s 30 total goals in 2026. Those 30 goals are a club record through 15 games of a season, and Musa has been absolutely instrumental in every phase of play. His goal-scoring feats are clear to see, but his hold-up play has been excellent, his defensive work and pressing have been solid, and he’s been a tremendous on-field leader for the team.
The only question is how much longer he’ll be around with the World Cup looming. A strong showing with Croatia could see teams lining up for his services.
Best Attacker: Petar Musa
Another obvious one: if your MVP is an attacker, they’re probably the best attacker. So I’ll use this space to talk a bit about how effective Musa has been with his strike partner, Logan Farrington. They haven’t spent as much time together on the pitch as some might hope, but the results when they’ve played together have been electric. As the World Cup break approached and Dallas shifted to a back 4, Farrington became more of a sub for Musa, though I suspect some of this was just to keep Musa’s minutes in check to ensure his health ahead of the World Cup.
What will be fascinating to see is how things set up after the World Cup, it seems ideal to have all of Musa, Farrington and Santiago Moreno on the field together, but we’ve seen very little of this so far. That’s the space I’ll be watching especially closely at the end of July when play resumes for FCD.
Best Defender: Shaq Moore
To be clear here, in terms of just pure defending ability, Osaze Urhoghide is the best defender on the FC Dallas roster. But what Shaq Moore has done this season is incredibly impressive. He leads the team in minutes, playing in every game and every minute besides the first 54 minutes against Seattle. He has been asked to play in, literally, every single position on the backline in both the back 5 and back 4. At the start of the season, he played left centerback, then swapped to right centerback, then spent some time at right wingback before deputizing as a left wingback after Bernard Kamungo’s injury.
With the switch to the back 4, he has played both left and right center back spots, as well as natural right back, and he finally topped it all off in the final game in Colorado by playing the central center back spot after Dallas switched to the back 5 to close the game. He’s done all of this at a tremendously high level while being co-captain alongside Ramiro. The World Cup break should be great for him to recharge and refresh before the grueling second half of the season starts, but Shaq has been immense and will almost certainly continue to be.
Best Provider: Joaquin Valiente
Tough one here, as no FCD player has really stepped up in the assists department so far in 2026. Valiente, Johansson, Musa, Farrington, and Ran Binyamin each have 2 assists, with Cappis, Kaick, Moreno, Kamungo, Ramiro, Shaq, Osaze, and Ibeagha each providing 1. I went ahead and gave this one to Valiente for his work across the whole season, though, to be clear, his abilities as a provider have been a little underwhelming.
That said, he’s delivered some really quality crosses for some important goals in 2026, so he comes away with this award at the midseason break, though I suspect it will fall to another player by season’s end.
Best Offseason Signing: Herman Johansson
Dallas didn’t have the busiest offseason in terms of incoming signings, so this is realistically a three or four-horse race between Johansson, Ran Binyamin, Jonathan Sirois, and Santiago Moreno. The latter three have all had their moments – Binyamin has come on strong since the switch to the back 4, Sirois had a very solid couple of games just before the break, and Moreno has looked promising, but Johansson is the pretty clear winner here for me.
The big Swede had a bit of an early struggle to adapt to the league, not shocking considering this is his first foray outside of Sweden. Still, he has turned out to be a very solid contributor both offensively and defensively.
There are still some overall questions about his fitness, especially as temperatures rise, but his quality is hard to miss, and he’s adapted to the back 4 as a natural right-back. Excited to see what he looks like in the second half of the season (and hopefully he can squeeze into the Sweden squad for the World Cup!).
Breakout Player: Kaick
Kaick’s first professional season in 2025 was a very up-and-down affair. He showed moments of real quality that made anyone watching understand why Dallas paid $4 million for him, despite his not having played a full professional game, and why European clubs had shown interest. He also had moments that felt like he had a long way to go. So expectations were, understandably, measured going into 2026. There was an expectation of improvement, but also that he would still be experiencing many of the growing pains that come with gaining professional experience.
But Kaick has surprised, possibly even himself, in the growth he’s shown in the first half of 2026. He has leveled up just about every part of his game, but he has especially cut down massively on the turnovers he was very prone to in his first season. He certainly still has a bit of a wild-card element to his game, and I’m not sure he’s ready to be the 6 in the team, but there’s also a reason we’re already hearing interest from Europe. He has every single physical tool you want in the modern game; he’s only 20 years old, and he’s really starting to put things together on the mental side. Very excited to see how the second half of 2026 goes for the young Brazilian pitbull.
Best Homegrown: Nolan Norris
To be frank, not many homegrown players have played much for Dallas in 2026 thus far. The only two regulars have been Nolan Norris and Michael Collodi, with a couple of others getting very minor appearances. That said, both Norris and Collodi have mostly played at a high level and fully deserved their starting spots. Norris was really in contention for the breakout player award as well, but he’s my winner for best homegrown.
He’s played as a left center-back in both the back 3 and back 4, as well as left-back in the back 4, and has done so very well. He has notched his first MLS goal against Seattle and is pretty firmly entrenched as a starter on the left side of defense. It feels like a long time coming. Dallas fans have been begging for more time for Norris since he made his debut way back in 2023, but the time is finally here, and it is great to see him grab the opportunity and not let go.
Most Underrated: Ramiro
The veteran Brazilian midfielder has been a bit of a punching bag at times in his year and a half in Frisco, but Eric Quill’s trust in him has not wavered at all. Named co-captain ahead of the season, Ramiro has started and played in almost every game in 2026 and has largely been rock solid in midfield. He really doesn’t excel in any area of the game, and his game doesn’t stand out, but his work rate is tremendous, and he clearly provides stability and leadership on and off the field, especially as a trilingual player who can communicate with everyone on the field.
That said, to be blunt, his spot is one of the ones that could probably stand to be upgraded in the summer. Still, I wouldn’t consider that any direct knock on Ramiro, more of just a statement on how much a top-level defensive midfielder could level up this team. But regardless of his role in the second half of the season, I have no doubt Ramiro will take it on with professionalism and the same workmanlike attitude that he has shown to this point with Dallas.
Excited for More in the Second Half: Santiago Moreno
This isn’t really much of an award, is it? But I wanted to note Santiago Moreno here, Dallas’ other Designated Player besides Petar Musa. At his best in Portland, Moreno was an electric attacking player, one of the best in MLS, but he had some issues with consistency and ended up pushing his way out of Portland in the first half of 2025. After a short and massively disappointing stint at Fluminense, he’s in Dallas and has shown some flashes of quality.
One thing I really like about Moreno is his on-field attitude. We’ve seen a lot of players wear the number 10 shirt and not put in a ton of defensive effort or mope and sulk if they aren’t getting the ball as much as they’d like, but we haven’t seen any of that from Moreno. He isn’t a great defender, but he puts in the effort, and over the couple of months since joining the team, he’s developed a good rapport with his fellow attackers, even if it hasn’t translated into much actual production. As Quill and his staff continue to figure out the shape and player combinations, I’m excited to see what Moreno can do in the back half of the season.
Did I get anything wrong here?
What awards would you give out midseason?
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Categorized:FC Dallas