Three Team Statistics That Define FC Dallas in 2026
The Burn picked up their 7th away win of the season in Minnesota on Wednesday, following a successful, if dicey, win against Sporting Kansas City in their long-awaited return to Toyota Stadium last Saturday.
With just 10 games left in the MLS regular season, let’s look at three team-based statistics that define FC Dallas in 2026.
Average Possession: 42% (29th out of 30)
For the vast majority of the history of FC Dallas, they’ve been at least somewhat concerned with controlling possession. This mindset peaked under Luchi Gonzalez, where, especially at home, Dallas would regularly record upwards of 60% possession. Nico Estevez also typically wanted the ball, but this has changed drastically under Eric Quill. Dallas ranked near the bottom of the league in average possession in 2025 and continued that trend in 2026.
Dallas rarely has the lion’s share of possession these days and often ends up with under 40%. They are almost completely unconcerned with playing the ball around the back and go forward and vertical as quickly as possible once they get the ball. They do not, however, simply boot the ball long. Dallas is 20th in the league in accurate long balls per match according to FotMob. They go vertical quickly, but they often try to do it with short passes on the ground rather than kicking it deep to get up the field.
This general play style has not changed when Dallas has tinkered with formations either. They’ve spent some time in 2026 playing in both a back 3 (or 5) and a back 4, but in both cases, possession stays quite similar. Eric Quill likely wants his team to get hold of the ball a bit more often to control games, especially at home, but don’t expect a drastic change in this stat as long as he is in charge.
Expected Goals Allowed: 31.7 (8th out of 30)
Let’s be clear – Dallas has allowed too many goals in 2026. They’ve allowed 41 goals through their 24 games so far; only 10 teams have conceded more, and only 4 of those teams are currently in the playoffs in their respective conferences.
However, Dallas are in the top third of the league in their expected goals allowed. As a reminder, expected goals, or xG, measure the quality of shots taken. A shot from a certain area basically has a certain likelihood of being a goal, and xG attempts to measure that. Therefore, expected goals allowed (xGA) measures the types and quality of shots that a team concedes.
Dallas sits at 31.7 xGA in MLS, good enough for 8th in the league. Every team ahead of them in this ranking, except Columbus, is in the playoffs, and several are among the league’s elite (Vancouver tops the list at a ridiculous 19.9 xGA).
So what does this mean? It means Dallas has a strong defensive structure and doesn’t concede many quality opportunities to opponents.
That begs the next question – why has Dallas conceded almost 10 goals more than expected?
The answer to that is complicated. Sometimes it comes down to poor goalkeeping, though that hasn’t been on display for Dallas for the most part in 2026. I think there are two major culprits for FCD: 1) the volume of quality chances conceded is low, but when they do concede them, they are almost guaranteed goals (the single goal conceded against Minnesota is a good example) and 2) Dallas, due to their stadium construction, went through a crazy August that saw them almost constantly on the road. This drained the team physically and mentally, and some of the concentration and effort that had defined their quality defensive performances slipped.
In my opinion, the xGA number and ranking are far more representative of the team’s reality than the actual goals conceded number, and I expect this to even out over the last 10 games of the season. Towards the end of August, Dallas regularly conceded 3 or more goals per game; based on FCD’s underlying stats, it would be a surprise for that trend to continue.
Clearances Per Match: 29.8 (1st out of 30)
No one in MLS clears the ball more than FC Dallas does. Your first reaction to this might be to say, “But Sam, surely this is bad and means that Dallas is doing way too much panic defending?” and my response would be, “Well…maybe?”
So let’s look a bit more at this. A clearance is basically defined as getting the ball out of your penalty area or final third without any real target in mind. That is how stats-keepers differentiate between a “clearance” and a pass. With that in mind, it isn’t surprising that a team like FCD, which has the second-lowest possession in the whole league, leads the league in clearances. They spend less time with the ball; their opposition has more, so Dallas needs to spend more time getting the ball out of their box.
But when you look at the other teams near the top of this list, that becomes a little less clear. Second and third place, with 26.6 and 26.5 clearances per game respectively, are Portland and Chicago, 13th and 10th in average possession respectively, both averaging a shade over 50% possession on the season. So what gives? Why are these teams clearing the ball just a few times less than a team that barely has over 40% possession?
I think some of this comes down to philosophy, especially for Chicago (Portland is a bit more complicated because they’re on their now 3rd manager of the season). Chicago under Gregg Berhalter do want to have the ball, but, as you may recall from his time managing the USMNT, they also want to move the ball up the field quickly when possible.
I would suggest that Dallas and Chicago, despite having quite different possession stats and general styles of play, both want to get the ball up the field vertically as quickly as possible and, to that end, both use clearances. Dallas often gets the ball out of their final third by clearing their lines to win a long ball up to Petar Musa or Logan Farrington, or by asking midfielders like Kaick or Ramiro to win second balls so they can catch the opposition in transition. Though it wasn’t technically a “clearance,” this was exemplified on Dallas’ first goal against Minnesota, in which Christian Cappis takes a pass back from Bernie Kamungo in his own third and basically just smashes it long to Logan Farrington, who wins a physical battle, pulls off his defender, threads a ball to the running Joaquin Valiente, who eventually lays it off for Kaick’s opening goal.
But also, on the other hand, Dallas does have a low share of possession, and their center backs are asked to do plenty of box defending. I’d suggest Dallas are, if not the best, one of the best teams in the league at defending their own box. Osaze Urhoghide, Shaq Moore, Nolan Norris, and Sebastien Ibeagha routinely win most of their aerial duels in play and on set pieces, which greatly contributes to Dallas’ high number of clearances per game.
Ideally, Dallas probably shouldn’t be leading the league in this stat; it does, to some extent at least, reflect a lack of control over the game and teams spending more time than Dallas would like in their final third, but if you can remain steady and confident in your clearances and the rest of the team can be locked in on responding to those clearances, it can be another tool in the toolbox to carry them forward offensively.
With 10 games remaining, where do you think FCD ends up in the final standings?
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Categorized:FC Dallas