Foreign Exchange: Three questions with Drew Epperley of Big D Soccer
A key player just left the team in a midseason move, but maybe they're better off now? We explore FC Dallas' current situation with an expert.
Greetings from New York City! Taking a quick break here from walking more than 20,000 steps a day, marveling at art and architecture, and now being able to say I have eaten fried pork ribs and takoyaki in a navigation-resistant Asian mall in Flushing, Queens, to report in on tonight's match. (Due to the trip, which enters the "dropping off my kid at college" phase tonight, we'll push pause on Emergency Podcast for this week. There's still the five-part Monday Night Live pile of audio if you haven't worked through that yet.
It's the first meeting with FC Dallas this year, remarkably, so I went ahead and reached out to one of my favorite FCD authorities, Drew Epperley of Big D Soccer, to talk about a team that was in transition in the offseason and once against finds itself in transition.
(Also, I returned the favor here, if you're curious about what intel Frisco fans are getting on us.)
To the questions!
So, Lucho Acosta started the year with FC Dallas and now he's off to Brazil ... how was his time there and what does the team do moving forward?
To quote Peter Campbell on Mad Men: “Not great, Bob, not great.”
The five goals and one assist weren’t terrible, but when you bring in a guy like Acosta to lead your attack, you expect more. We knew going in from talking to folks in D.C. and Cincinnati that if things are going well, Acosta is great to work with on and off the field. If things aren’t going his way, then expect a bumpy ride. We got the bumpy ride and then some as his final weeks in Dallas were met with disappointing play on the field, a violation of team rules on a away trip that forces the team to suspend him for a couple of games (though they listed him as ‘out’ for personal reasons), and then when the two sides appeared to be back on the same page the play of the field didn’t improve.
Getting a transfer for him was actually a good sign that the team admitted to making a mistake by bringing him in this season and were willing to do what they could to give [FCD head coach] Eric Quill the right building blocks for his style of play on the roster.
How has Eric Quill been as a head coach so far? Do you think he's going to be the head coach by this time next year?
At this point, I have to wonder if they hadn’t brought in Acosta in February where this group would be. They had a massive roster turnover before the season and with that came so many new faces in the lineup early on. Chemistry was an issue for the first two or three months of the season. Yet, they found results away from home to keep them at least within a shot of the playoff line. Which was good, since their play at home before the last month had been rough. Like, historically rough; only the famed Southlake season was worse.
Overall, he’s been a decent coach. More importantly, he hasn’t lost the locker room during any of the struggles this season. I think because of that and the moves the club has made recently both incoming and outgoing, we’re going to still be talking about him this time next year.
Perhaps relatedly, what would you say the team's identity is this year? And based on that, can they do what they need to do in the remaining matches to make the playoffs?
The identity before last week was all about figuring out how to work with Acosta. Now, it is a bit clearer. They’re getting more comfortable in this 3-4-3 or 5-3-2 kind of system that Quill has landed on that doesn’t require a lot of possession. They want to sit back and absorb what other teams put in front of them and then work for a counter attack with their speed up front and finishing from Petar Musa.
It has worked pretty well as of late, with ten goals scored in their last three matches. If they can keep that up, find a way to eliminate the defensive mistakes we’ve seen at times this season, I think they’ll actually sneak into the playoffs. We’re talking wild card at best, though.
Verde All Day is a reader-supported online publication covering Austin FC. Additional support is provided by Austin Telco Federal Credit Union. You can comment here if you’re a subscriber, or reach out via Bluesky.
Even with a couple of matches when they didn't score in there, Verde's scored 12 goals in the last seven matches — a definite improvement over the early part of the season.
Greetings from New York City! Taking a quick break here from walking more than 20,000 steps a day, marveling at art and architecture, and now being able to say I have eaten fried pork ribs and takoyaki in a navigation-resistant Asian mall in Flushing, Queens, to report in on tonight's match. (Due to the trip, which enters the "dropping off my kid at college" phase tonight, we'll push pause on Emergency Podcast for this week. There's still the five-part Monday Night Live pile of audio if you haven't worked through that yet.
It's the first meeting with FC Dallas this year, remarkably, so I went ahead and reached out to one of my favorite FCD authorities, Drew Epperley of Big D Soccer, to talk about a team that was in transition in the offseason and once against finds itself in transition.
(Also, I returned the favor here, if you're curious about what intel Frisco fans are getting on us.)
To the questions!
So, Lucho Acosta started the year with FC Dallas and now he's off to Brazil ... how was his time there and what does the team do moving forward?
To quote Peter Campbell on Mad Men: “Not great, Bob, not great.”
The five goals and one assist weren’t terrible, but when you bring in a guy like Acosta to lead your attack, you expect more. We knew going in from talking to folks in D.C. and Cincinnati that if things are going well, Acosta is great to work with on and off the field. If things aren’t going his way, then expect a bumpy ride. We got the bumpy ride and then some as his final weeks in Dallas were met with disappointing play on the field, a violation of team rules on a away trip that forces the team to suspend him for a couple of games (though they listed him as ‘out’ for personal reasons), and then when the two sides appeared to be back on the same page the play of the field didn’t improve.
Getting a transfer for him was actually a good sign that the team admitted to making a mistake by bringing him in this season and were willing to do what they could to give [FCD head coach] Eric Quill the right building blocks for his style of play on the roster.
How has Eric Quill been as a head coach so far? Do you think he's going to be the head coach by this time next year?
At this point, I have to wonder if they hadn’t brought in Acosta in February where this group would be. They had a massive roster turnover before the season and with that came so many new faces in the lineup early on. Chemistry was an issue for the first two or three months of the season. Yet, they found results away from home to keep them at least within a shot of the playoff line. Which was good, since their play at home before the last month had been rough. Like, historically rough; only the famed Southlake season was worse.
Overall, he’s been a decent coach. More importantly, he hasn’t lost the locker room during any of the struggles this season. I think because of that and the moves the club has made recently both incoming and outgoing, we’re going to still be talking about him this time next year.
Perhaps relatedly, what would you say the team's identity is this year? And based on that, can they do what they need to do in the remaining matches to make the playoffs?
The identity before last week was all about figuring out how to work with Acosta. Now, it is a bit clearer. They’re getting more comfortable in this 3-4-3 or 5-3-2 kind of system that Quill has landed on that doesn’t require a lot of possession. They want to sit back and absorb what other teams put in front of them and then work for a counter attack with their speed up front and finishing from Petar Musa.
It has worked pretty well as of late, with ten goals scored in their last three matches. If they can keep that up, find a way to eliminate the defensive mistakes we’ve seen at times this season, I think they’ll actually sneak into the playoffs. We’re talking wild card at best, though.
Verde All Day is a reader-supported online publication covering Austin FC. Additional support is provided by Austin Telco Federal Credit Union. You can comment here if you’re a subscriber, or reach out via Bluesky.
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