FC Dallas

Team information

Inaugural season: 1996

Home field: Toyota Stadium

Owner: Hunt Sports Group

Team colors: red, blue, white, and silver

Overview

FC Dallas is a Major League Soccer (MLS) men’s professional soccer team in Frisco, Texas. The team was originally known as Dallas Burn, which was one of the teams that started the MLS in 1996. The organization is owned the Hunt Sports Group, which is chaired by Clark Hunt, whose father Lamar helped found MLS, the main professional men’s soccer organization in the United States and Canada. FC Dallas has been named the Western Conference Champions numerous times and won the Supporters’ Shield. The team plays in the Toyota Stadium and has an academy program that helps train young soccer players, some of whom are later brought onto the team.

History

Originally called the Dallas Burn, FC Dallas was one of the teams that began during Major League Soccer’s (MLS) first season in 1996. Hunt Sports Group, which also owns other professional sports franchises, founded the Dallas Burn. In April 1996, Dallas Burn joined the Western Conference of the MLS under head coach Dave Dir. When the team first debuted, its colors were red, black, and gold and its logo was a stallion.

The team debuted against fellow Western Conference team the San Jose Clash in front of more than 27,000 fans. The team, which included Jason Kreis who would become a Dallas legend, finished fourth in the league during its first year. The next year, the team only finished fifth overall but managed to win the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup, commonly known as the US Open Cup, which is one of the oldest prizes in soccer in the United States. The team remained in the league’s top-ten finishers for more than a decade but failed to bring home any of the most-coveted professional soccer prizes.

In 2004, the MLS Players Union and MLS signed the league’s first collective bargaining agreement, and the Dallas Burn rebranded to FC Dallas. The name change brought with it changes to the team’s kit, colors, and logo. FC Dallas made its main colors red, blue, white, and silver and its logo a bull. The team also adopted a bull mascot called Tex Hooper. The next year, the team moved into the Toyota Stadium and Toyota Soccer Center, which seats 19,000 people for soccer matches. The stadium was one of the first soccer-specific stadiums built in the United States. In 2018, the National Soccer Hall of Fame opened at the Toyota Stadium’s south end. At the same time, the stadium underwent major renovations.

In 2010, FC Dallas again claimed a major prize when it won the 2010 Western Conference Championship. That year, they also made it to the MLS Cup Finals, though they lost to the Colorado Rapids. During the next season, the team, led by David Ferreira Brek Shea, tied its own record for the most points scored in a season. In 2015, FC Dallas again won the Western Conference Championship, and the club finished second overall in the MLS that year. In 2016 FC Dallas was again the Western Conference Regular Season Champion. The club also won the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup in 2016. The team won another major award, the Supporters’ Shield, which is given to the team with the best overall record in the MLS. That same year, FC Dallas made it to the quarterfinals for the CONCACAF Champions League tournament, though they did not advance.

The 2020 season was notable for MLS teams, including FC Dallas, as the COVID-19 pandemic upended the 2020 season and changed how clubs played. In early 2020, the club played several matches before MLS halted play for months. MLS planned the MLS is Back Tournament for the summer of 2020, and teams were asked to go into isolation so they could be eligible to play in the event. FC Dallas players went into isolation, but too many FC Dallas players contracted COVID-19 while they were waiting to play, so the team had to pull out of the tournament. Instead, FC Dallas played against Nashville SC, which also had to pull out of the tournament because of players contracting COVID-19.

In August, FC Dallas and some other teams were permitted to have fans back in the stadiums. The summer of 2020 also saw numerous Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests in the United States, and many FC Dallas players kneeled when the national anthem was played before a match. Many fans in the crowd booed the player, disapproving of the players’ show of solidarity with BLM. Numerous FC Dallas players, including Reggie Cannon, expressed disappointment with FC Dallas fans for the lack of support.

In 2021, head coach Luchi Gonzalez was let go, and Marco Ferruzzi served as interim coach. Nico Estevez was hired as head coach and oversaw the team in his second season in 2023.

Notable players

Jason Kreis, who joined the Dallas Burn in its inaugural season, went on to become one of the most accomplished players in the team’s history. Kreis started with the club at its first match in 1996, and a few weeks later scored the club’s first-ever goal. Even though he was a late-round draft pick, Kreis became one of the best players on the team and led the team in scoring for numerous seasons. He was named to the MLS All-Star team five times. In 1999, he became the first player in MLS history to make fifteen goals and fifteen assists. He also led the league in points and goals and was named MLS Most Valuable Player (MVP), the first American-born player in the league to win that title. FC Dallas traded Kreis in 2004 to a brand-new team, Real Salt Lake. When Kreis retired from playing for Salt Lake in 2007, he was named the club’s head coach.

Brek Shea is a midfielder who played for FC Dallas from 2009 to 2012. Dallas selected Shea in the first round of the 2008 MLS SuperDraft. In 2009, he appeared in nineteen regular season games and made a game-tying assist in early June. He played in twenty-five regular season games in 2010 and scored five goals and had four assists. In 2011, Shea was a finalist for the Volkswagen MLS MVP Award and was named to the MLS All-Star team and MLS Best XI. He led the team with eleven goals that season, five of them were game-winners. In the 2012 season, Shea scored three goals but had to leave midway through the season to have minor surgery. In 2013, he joined the Stroke City club in the United Kingdom (UK).

David Ferreira is a midfielder who played for FC Dallas from 2009 to 2012. In his first season, he played all thirty regular season games. He ended the season as the second-leading goal scorer, with eight total goals and seven assists. In 2010, Ferreira again played in all the regular season games and was involved in twenty-one of the team’s forty-one goals during the season, including having two game-winning goals. He was named MLS’s MVP and was named to the MLS Best XI and an MLS All- Star team. He suffered a season-ending injury in early 2011 and did not return until the middle of 2012 season. He made important plays late in the season that helped the team get into the playoffs, but the club decided not to resign Ferreira for another season.

Kevin Hartman was a goalkeeper who played for FC Dallas between 2010 and 2012. In 2010, Hartman broke the MLS record for single-season goals against average and was named MLS Player of the Month in August. He helped his team clinch the Western Conference Championship. During the 2011 season, Hartman became the first goalkeeper in MLS to earn one hundred shutouts during his career, earning thirteen in that season alone. (He would later end his career with 112 total shutouts.) FC Dallas did not renew his contract in 2012, and, after playing briefly for the New York Red Bulls, he retired in 2013. He was nominated to be on the ballot for the National Soccer Hall of Fame in 2018.

Bibliography

“A Breakdown of the FC Dallas Community Kit.” FC Dallas, 2 March 2021, www.fcdallas.com/news/breakdown-fc-dallas-community-kit. Accessed 20 Mar. 2024.

Boren, Cindy and Des Bieler. “Fans Were Able to Attend an MLS Game in Texas. They Booed Players Who Knelt During the Anthem.” Washington Post, 13 Aug. 2020,

www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/08/13/fans-were-able-attend-an-mls-game-texas-they-booed-players-who-knelt-during-anthem/. Accessed 20 Mar. 2024.

“Club History.” FC Dallas, 2024, www.fcdallas.com/club/about. Accessed 20 Mar. 2024.

“FC Dallas.” Plunkett’s Sports Industry Almanac 2009, edited by Jack W. Plunkett. Plunkett Research: 2008.

Franca, Michael. “MLS 25 Years Later: Jason Kreis.” Inter Miami CF, 2020, www.intermiamicf.com/news/mls-25-years-later-jason-kreis. Accessed 20 Mar. 2024.

“Timeline of Major League Soccer’s 25 Years.” Reuters, 29 Feb. 2020, www.reuters.com/article/us-soccer-usa-mls-timeline/timeline-of-major-league-soccers-25-years-idUSKBN20N13E. Accessed 20 Mar. 2024.

“Toyota Stadium.” FC Dallas, 2024, www.fcdallas.com/stadium/about. Accessed 20 Mar. 2024.