Back-to-Back Road Wins: Three Things Going Right for FC Dallas
Following their Leagues Cup exit in Toluca, Dallas has stormed back into MLS play with two straight wins in Austin and Salt Lake as they finally near the end of their road odyssey.
Let’s look at a few things that are going right for the Burn as they continue to pick up much-needed points on their travels.
Petar Musa
What else is there to say about Musa at this point? Between both matches and across less than 3 halves worth of game time, he scored 3 goals, bringing his season total up to 16 with 14 games left to play. Barring some injury or other situation (I did knock on wood), he will almost certainly break the club’s single-season scoring record and is likely to set a mark that will stand for some time. If the three goals had come in a single game, he’d have had a perfect hat trick. The first, in Austin, was an absolute banger with his weaker left foot that pinged off Brad Stuver’s crossbar as the Austin goalkeeper watched helplessly. In Salt Lake, his first goal was a towering header that truly epitomized the phrase “dunked on,” and he finished it off with a perfectly placed shot within the box into the bottom corner before being subbed off at halftime for some much-needed rest.
All due respect to Sam Surridge, but Dallas has the best number 9 in MLS. If he can keep this form or even something just close to this form through the remainder of the season, Dallas may be looking at home-field advantage in the first round of the playoffs, something they haven’t claimed since 2022.
Attacking Through the Middle
For a lot of this season, Dallas has struggled to create chances by attacking the middle of the field. They’ve thrived in transition and on outside-to-inside attacks, but haven’t made much hay creating chances through the middle, particularly in what long-time MLS analyst Matt Doyle often calls “zone 14” (the area in the middle of the field just outside the box). This was exemplified in the final Leagues Cup match against Toluca, where Dallas couldn’t get anywhere near the final third unless they went out wide.
But things changed in Austin. As Buzz Carrick from 3rd Degree noted, Dallas had a whopping 38% of their final third entries come through the middle of the field. With Musa up top and Joaquin Valiente and Santi Moreno behind him, Dallas was able to attack the middle of the field and create a number of quality chances doing so. This trend continued against Salt Lake with that trio reprising their roles in the first half. Dallas’ first and third goals both came from attacking the middle of the field. Dallas also reaped the benefits of forcing RSL to defend more intently in the middle, opening space for Dallas’ second and fourth goals, both of which came from wide areas.
Even with this deficiency for most of the season, Dallas has been one of the league’s best attacking teams, with only Miami, Nashville, Cincinnati and Vancouver scoring more goals thus far this season. If this sort of quality through the middle of the field continues, Dallas will push even higher toward being one of the top attacking teams in MLS.
Contributions From Depth
Eric Quill has run quite a small rotation of players in 2026. He has his pretty clear circle of trust at this point: whichever keeper is in, Osaze Urhoghide, Shaq Moore, Nolan Norris, Bernie Kamungo, Herman Johansson, Sebastien Ibeagha, Ramiro, Kaick, Christian Cappis, Joaquin Valiente, Santi Moreno, Petar Musa, Logan Farrington and Sam Sarver. Outside that group, you’ve had a few players with fleeting moments on the field, such as Deedson and Patrickson Delgado, but Quill has largely stuck with his core group, even as games and travel have ramped up.
He finally hit the point where he needed to bring in a few more guys and lean on them heavily for results. Against Austin, that player was Lalas Abubakar, deputizing as center back with Nolan Norris suspended due to yellow card accumulation and Shaq Moore feeling “something” shortly before the game and being rested. And Abubakar, who had played one single half up to that point, played a tremendous game across 90 minutes, scoring the opener from a corner and putting in an extremely solid defensive shift.
Against Salt Lake, it was Ran Binyamin. Binyamin has sort of been in the rotation to this point, but his time has mostly been limited. He can an entire second half run out in Salt Lake, starting off playing behind fellow substitute Logan Farrington as one of the “10s” before moving to left wing back after Kamungo was replaced by Sam Sarver. He had his bigger impact at wing back where his athleticism shone through, and he popped up just outside the box in stoppage time, cutting inside the RSL defense and unleashing a perfectly placed shot into the bottom corner to win the game for Dallas.
Things do lighten up pretty soon for Dallas as they come back home, but the season is far from over.
If Dallas is as good as they think they are and wants to push into that upper echelon in the Western Conference, they’ll need to continue getting these kinds of quality contributions from their depth pieces.
How are you feeling about FCD’s back-to-back road wins?
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