Last season, the Vancouver Whitecaps played away to FC Dallas in their third match of the season and came away with a 3-1 win.
This Saturday, exactly a year less a day later, the Whitecaps will do it all over again, hoping for a similar result.
But this is not the same Dallas team that faced the Whitecaps then. A coaching change has seen Eric Quill, a former coach of Dallas’ second team and most recently, New Mexico United, come in after a record-setting season in the USL Championship.
Jamie Watson, former Orlando CITY SC and Minnesota United player and current MLS Season Pass match analyst, said Quill has “got Dallas on the right trajectory.”
“Quill has a good system to play where he lets the ball do the work, uses the intelligence of his players to be able to get into pockets of space when that system calls for it and opens it up,” he said.
Those pockets of space come from stretching the field as far as possible, with players covering the entire width of the pitch. In forcing teams to cover that same width, Quill’s team exploits the holes left behind and can do so with a quick-paced, highly intelligent front four, including wingers.
Similar to the Whitecaps this season, they also love to press high and force turnovers where they can quickly transition.
“At times, it’s like a 4-2-4 when they defend, which is really difficult and can force turnovers and can cause transitional moments where you get a game-changer like Luciano Acosta and man, he can win you a game on his own as we’ve seen him do for years in this league,” Watson said.
Quill called his no. 9 and no. 10 duo the best in MLS (behind Inter Miami). But Vancouver fans may have something to say about that.
“If Ryan Gauld was able to play tomorrow night, that was going to be my story right there,” Watson said. “Which team has the best 9-10 combination? Is it Brian White and Ryan Gauld? Or is it Petar Musa and Luciano Acosta? That would have been fun to watch.”
Unfortunately, Gauld is still out with his knee sprain. Sam Adekugbe and Emmanuel Sabbi continue their time in the trainer’s room as well.
But there is some positive news: Jayden Nelson is a potential game-time decision after a week out with a hamstring issue.
Dallas purchase with a statement of intent in mind
Acosta’s signing was one of the major talking points this off-season in MLS. Signed using the new cash-for-player trade introduced this off-season by MLS, Acosta was bought for $5 million US guaranteed with another $1 million US in performance-based metrics.
But it was not just one player. Several changes have been significant for Dallas. Not only has quality entered the doors, several key pieces from previous seasons have also gone.
“Everyone is going to be a victim of their own success when players start to get bonuses and those roll into salaries,” Watson said. “It’s part-and-parcel with this league, and I think everybody sort of understands it. For Dallas, they lose some real key pieces to the puzzle. [Asier] Illarramendi. [Paul] Arriola. Alan Velasco goes to Boca on a record transfer. Ruan’s out. [Jesus] Ferreira. But I’ve really liked the addition of Anderson Julio. He’s looked really good. And Acosta was a big signal of intent.”
In particular, a player of Acosta’s calibre and soccer IQ fits well with Quill’s system. And a player like Musa is sure to benefit.
Whitecaps controlling what they can
Watson was quick to acknowledge Vancouver has undergone several off-season changes of their own: a new coach, new players, and an ownership cloud hanging over all of it.
But he argued that none of this seems to have affected the players. In contrast, he said it has galvanized them.
“You can only control what you can control as a player,” Watson said. “And whatever external factors going on—players coming and going, ownership, being at sort of a weird influx of where the future is going—the players can only focus on what’s in their control. And that is, can you put out maximum effort each week? Can you make sure that you’re creating chances to be entertaining and exciting for the fans? And ultimately, can you win games? And right now, the Whitecaps’ players have checked those boxes better than we’ve seen them do it in a very long time.”
A big part of that has been the buy-in from players into what new head coach Jesper Sørensen has brought. A new coach brings new ideas, and even though Sørensen himself said he wanted to bring an evolution and not a revolution, the changes on the pitch have been easy to see.
The favoured possession-based 4-3-3 system of the Dane has the Whitecaps with the third-highest (56 per cent) possession in the league so far.
Watson pointed to the idea of repressure, something he heard numerous times in the coaching meeting with Whitecaps assistant coach Michael D’Agostino earlier this week.
“[D’Agostino] said ‘repressure’ three different times in our 15-minute conversation we had with him. And that’s a big key to what Vancouver wants to do.”
Repressure is when a team turns the ball over high up the pitch and immediately presses to win it back. The higher teams can win the ball back, the quicker and more lethal they can be in the seconds following.
“[The Whitecaps] are repressing at a rate that is suffocating teams,” Watson said. “They’re winning the ball in advantageous spots. And then, they’re being ruthless. It’s not just winning the ball, turning around and passing it backwards. It’s winning it back, and then trying to go forward quickly.”
The key player against Dallas: Brian White
In Dallas’s last match against Chicago Fire, they blew a 1-0 lead, shipping three goals in the final nine minutes of the match.
“A lot of it actually came from the back post,” Watson said. “White, his movement can cause a back four to become disoriented. And then he creates just enough of a space to allow another player to take advantage.”
This movement from White, where he draws either one of two centre-backs towards him with his run, is something he consistently does.
Adekugbe’s two goals this season were helped by being the second man in front of White’s initial run. And Tate Johnson’s first-ever MLS goal epitomizes this selflessness of White.
No one saw the 19-year-old coming in behind the last defender.
“An active and dynamic Brian White will cause the centre-back pairing…[to have] moments where one goes and the other one should be covering, but maybe they both initially go. And the next thing you know, White pulls off the shoulder of one, darts in behind the other, and it can be that combination.”
Kickoff for the Whitecaps match against Dallas is at 5:30 p.m.
