FC Dallas hope to better 'bittersweet' season

Club hiring full-time fitness coach to avoid early season woes in 2010

While FCD was clearly a formidable foe down the stretch, they were just the opposite in the first 18 games of the year. From their season-opening loss to Chicago in late March, Hyndman's squad struggled and limped to a 4-9-5 mark in their first 18 games.

Hyndman was asked what he can do to avoid history repeating itself in the early stages of the 2010 season and offered a simple response.

"One of the things we're doing is I've gotten approval to hire a full-time strength and conditioning coach. I don't think the conditioning level of the team was where it needed to be when the season started," the FCD coach said. "I think it was probably 70 percent of where it needed to be. I don't think some of the players could have done the work I needed them to do. Either they would have been injured or I had to pull them aside and give them their own training. So I think we all kind of suffered from that and that's my responsibility."

Gaining approval for the new position required Hyndman to make a strong case to club ownership about the merits of such a new hire.

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"What I've been able to stress to ownership is that we're making such an investment in these players in time and money, let's spend a little bit of money and get somebody who is pretty important here," he said.

Hyndman said the club will continue working with the Michael Johnson Performance Center in nearby McKinney, a facility owned by the Olympic gold medal-winning track star and a facility near Pizza Hut Park. He added that he would like FCD's strength and conditioning coach to start as quickly as possible.

"What a great second part of the season. With the all-star break, we focused on the 12 games. We came away with a 7-4-1 record," the FCD coach said. "If we had that before, we would be in a wonderful position. The great run at home, going on the road, the number of goals we scored, we led the league in goals with 50 (were all big positives). That was a huge difference.

"On the other side, we were second as far as worst (for goals allowed). So you look at that and then you've got the Golden Boot winner. We scored a heck of a lot of goals and you're leading the league and then you look at all the positive things like the way we ended the season, the great run, putting the right players on the field, becoming a harder team to beat and developing stronger team chemistry."

FCD midfielder Dax McCarty, whom many consider the team's MVP for the 2009 season and recently signed a contract extension with the club, agreed with Hyndman's assessment of the season.

"It's been a pretty bittersweet year in terms of the success we had. You look at the beginning of the season and you really couldn't have had a worse start than we had," McCarty said. "We really struggled early on for whatever reason and guys weren't on the same page. It was frustrating I think for everyone because we knew we had some talent and a system that we knew should be successful, especially with the players we had. It was tough.

"And then you go into the latter part of the season and nobody really expects you to do much and challenge. Then we go on a pretty good run and we're probably one of the three better teams in the league in terms of form the past 10 games."

In the end, the club fell just short of returning to the playoffs, now having gone two consecutive years without reaching the postseason. Dallas has never before failed to reach the playoffs more than two years in a row.

"It's bittersweet because we made such a great run to put ourselves in position to make the playoffs only to lose. We had 45 minutes to go (at Seattle) and to let it slip away was really frustrating," McCarty said. "But at the same time, it's really encouraging for next year. We're really positive for next year and we're hoping that we can keep the core of guys together and hopefully make a run."

Steve Hunt is a contributor to MLSnet.com

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