Afterburn Soccer Show

Welcome back to the Afterburn Soccer Show.

We jump right into a strange weekend - Petar Musa with a hat trick. Is he too good for FC Dallas? We talk about our reactions to the draw at home against San Diego FC - is this just one of those games? Are there positive enough signs that this team can get better?

We also talk about the wind that was in Austin that made North Texas' matchup such a weird one - hard to take too much out of that one.

Thanks for your support!

Welcome back to the Afterburn Soccer Show, two weeks into an intriguing season.

And, yeah, FC Dallas played a great game in Los Angeles, unlucky not to come away with some kind of point to show for it. We talk about the performance, a strong first start from Valiente, a debut from Ricky Louis, and lots of positives. This team has us feeling optimistic about the future.

As for North Texas SC, they followed up a strong performance with a demolition of the Rapids 2. Not a perfect game - that will come - but Edouard Nys looks legit. We are excited about this gravy train continuing as they prepare to face Austin FC 2 next weekend.

We close out the show with our predictions for San Diego and more.

Thanks for liking and subscribing, and sharing the show - even on Reddit.

You rock!

Hey, Afterburn fans. Thank you for your support!

We are in the midst of the season - soccer is served each and every weekend now that North Texas has kicked things off with a fun match against Real Monarchs on Sunday afternoon. While the game ended in a disappointing draw on the road, there are still plenty of positives. An incredible amount of positives you can say.

While FC Dallas settled for a scoreless draw at home against Nashville, we can find some positives as well, especially an improved defensive performance that comes at a timely moment ahead of a huge road trip to Los Angeles.

Jose, Chris, Collin, and Nathan get into it, looking at the big picture and the bright spots in a not-so-great weekend for our squads.

We close out with match predictions and have a couple of quotes from Eric Quill and John Gall for you to savor.

It’s our first show of the 2026 Major League Soccer season, as we celebrate FC Dallas opening up things at home with a big 3-2 win over visiting Toronto FC.

We celebrated Petar Musa and Logan Farrington, showing the capable strike force they can be, even as we also spent time wondering if the defensive unit can improve with each week. We are hopeful but also have questions.

Our main topics:

* Game Reactions

* Defensive Miscues

* Debuts from Herman Johansson and Ran Binyamin

* Match Predictions for the game against Nashville

* A few other threads from around the league

We appreciate all the comments that came at us during the show.

Afterburn Season Preview

Good evening, and welcome. Welcome to the Afterburn Soccer Show, FC Dallas Season Preview Edition.

We want to hear from you - we want to dive into an exciting, momentous, spectacular season head in the 2026 Major League Soccer season.

I’m Nathan. Follow me @ afterburn soccer.

With me, our good friends -

Legend himself, Jose @ el chico carmona

Rising journalist extraordinaire, Chris @ c wintas

And finally, making his worldwide modeling debut, Colin Coovert @ mr coov

That’s right. Colin was featured in FC Dallas’ new jersey reveal, and yes, he should quite his job and begin the modeling circuit.

Briefly, how much do you love this new jersey, Collin?

We have so much to get to ahead of the opening kickoff this Saturday against Toronto.

Let’s start with two signings announced in the past four days.

First, FC Dallas acquired Joaquín Valiente from Defensor SC in Uruguay. An attacking midfielder. A potential No. 10. Small but dynamic. Well-scouted. The nice thing about this signing is that FC Dallas still has a DP slot open, but Valiente could be just what this team needs.

Thoughts on the signing?

Second, another goalkeeper. A loan signing from Lexington in the USL League One - Brooks Thompson. 23 year old, plenty of starts under his belt. A depth piece - but potential.

Chris and Jose, intriguing move?

Now, let’s get to the meat of the show. Predictions. What does 2026 portend for FC Dallas? Will we compete for hardware? Could this year be special?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XuS_4LWxe-dVAhtKo8B_fPxIGbrm9C0ivhcTCdgWQD8/edit?tab=t.0

Predictions for FC Dallas’s opening match against Toronto:

Thanks so much for joining us tonight. You are a gift. Enjoy the rest of your evening. Catch us at afterburn.soccer, on X, or wherever you find podcasts. Dallas Til We Die.

Afterburn Soccer Show

Welcome to the Afterburn Soccer Show - Preseason Part 2 - as we cover FC Dallas, North Texas Soccer Club, Major League Soccer and more.

Joined tonight by our regular friends - Chris Winters who covers North Texas SC for 3rd Degree - rumor tracker Jose Carmona and our season ticket hero Colin Coovert.

Tonight, we also welcome special guest Favian Renkel - writer, journalist, analyst with Kickbase USA as well as with the Athletic and other fine outlets. Welcome, Favian!

Favian made the decision to get on as many podcasts ahead of the 2026 Major League Soccer season - what number podcast are we?

Tell us a little bit about Kickbase.

Big news:

FC Dallas announced today that Maarten Paes, long time goalkeeper with over 100+ appearances the team, has been transfered to Ajax, a rumor that built up steam and was finalized today. A bittersweet transfer for a fan favorite who was a good teammate, loved Dallas, and proved his quality time and time again… and yet we have to be happy for him as her returns to Europe.

In the meanwhile, the team has already lined up competition for presumptive no. 1 Michael Collodi by trading for Jonathan Sirois from Montreal - a guy who brings experience - 89 starts in MLS and still relatively young at 24 years of age.

Let’s do reactions. Thoughts on this business for FC Dallas?

Preseason Competition:

FC Dallas is undefeated in preseason, first beating Portomonense and claiming their first “hardware” of the year with an Atlantic Cup win over Brondby U19s and Real Salt Lake. Lots of guys got minutes in this one - you saw young and old… and really, some attractive soccer out there.

The main thread is - FC Dallas is really locking in on this 3-5-2, this identity, and it looks good. That is a huge shift from a year ago.

The other piece is to see young draft picks once again get an opportunity - including Ricky Louis and Nicholas Simmonds. Louis, in particular, is making a case for minutes. Should fans temper their expectations for these youngsters?

Favian: From the outside looking in at FC Dallas, their moves, their 2025 campaign which ended pretty decently considering the drama of Lucho Acosta, where do you rate this team ahead of a big season? Can this squad compete? Are they still lacking something?

Exodus?

Across Major League Soccer, we are seeing movement of some big names - some young names - Obed Vargas from Seattle to Atletico Madrid. And now Bouanga potentially on his way out Fluminense. And we have a team in Sporting Kansas City who barely have a team signed. Is this a one team league with Inter Miami adding firepower and other teams trying to figure out how to stay competitive?

What is FC Dallas missing?

North Texas SC - Lineup. Where is this team at this point?

Welcome back to the Afterburn Soccer Show, covering FC Dallas, North Texas Soccer Club, and Major League Soccer.

As this is the first show of the year, switching to a newer Mac mini, there were some rough edges in this episode. No intro music? Check. Audio a bit too hot on Nathan’s mic? Check. But improvements on the way? Yes.

Just like FC Dallas, we’ll get a bit more fit a week or two in.

Thanks for your patience, but jump into the episode and hear us catching up everyone on new players, trying to figure out pronunciations, the general sense of optimism, and rumors lurking around. It’s a new year, and we have every reason to be excited about FC Dallas’ future.

I’ve got more articles on the way, but yesterday FC Dallas hosted their annual end of season press conference.

I dropped a quick 3 minute video with a couple of highlights.

Here’s the stuff:

* Dan Hunt is really excited about the schedule shift and the potential for bigger sales, potential reinvestment in teams, and loan options from Europe. Really excited!

* The team is not going to sign a new CB. They feel they have the right mix of guys, which includes a healthy Geovane Jesus who could slot in at RCB. That may not be what fans want to hear, but it is interesting.

More on the way in the coming days…

Afterburn SOCCER Show for November 19, 2025

A quick overview of our topics for the night.

* World Cup News

* Petar Musa big for Croatia

* Deedson big for Haiti

* Tanner Tessman GOAL

* MLS Season Changes

* How will the shift work?

* FC Dallas Roster Decisions

* Who stays and who goes?

• 2. Sebastian Lletget already on the way out

Thank you all for your tremendous support as we continue to try to grow the show. We are a tiny outfit, all part-time, doing it out of love. We appreciate every click, listen, like, subscribe, recommendation.

This week, we hold our final regular season show of the year, and we had some good comments.

We jumped right into reactions to FC Dallas’ penalty kick shootout loss to Vancouver, a tough game that showed the characteristic grit of this team despite coming up short.

Then we began to grade the team and the head coach for the season. Yes, we acknowledged the bad signings, the departures, the formation shifts, the poor form at home. But there are plenty of positive signs for the future even if this year was sort of a mess. Aka expect lots of C grades.

Finally, we hit the team’s offseason priorities. Basically, FC Dallas needs to get its Designated Player signings right to push the team into contention. I recommend at least one name that should come home.