Some eight years have passed since FC Dallas last won a playoff series. In 1999, the Dallas Burn beat defending MLS Cup champions Chicago Fire in a best-of-three, the clincher coming with a 3-2 win against the Men in Red at the Cotton Bowl. Most that played for that team are gone but two remain with FCD and both recall the club's last playoff series victory well.
Current FCD assistant coach Oscar Pareja was a midfielder on that team and played in all six games during that postseason. Bobby Rhine was a 23-year-old rookie on that squad who played in 16 games during the regular season but did not see any time in the postseason.
"I thought it was a great year for us," Pareja recalled. "I remember Jason (Kreis) being the leading scorer and that we had a great group of guys. In that series against Chicago in the Cotton Bowl, I think we were down and won 3-2 after a [Jorge] 'Zarco' Rodrigugez goal tied it.
"It was a very proud moment when we beat them because over the years, I don't remember a team that played better soccer than Chicago because that was when they had Peter Nowak and all those guys," he said. "It was great to beat them at home in front of a great crowd. It was a great game. Without any doubt, I think that was one of the more enjoyable years that I've had with this franchise."
In five trips to the MLS Cup Playoffs since, the Dallas club hasn't made it past the first round. That streak matches the MetroStars/Red Bulls current streak as the longest without getting past the first round. In nine trips to the postseason, FC Dallas has won a series just twice, ahead of only New York, which has done it just once in eight all-time appearances.
"First, it's hard to believe that it's been that long since we've won a playoff series," Rhine said. "Thinking back to that, we had a pretty steady, consistent season and if we lost a game, we would never lose two or three in a row. We came down the stretch run and got hot at the right time because guys like Jason (Kreis) and Ariel Graziani scoring goals for us.
"We got key goals in key parts of the game and it felt good to knock out a team like Chicago that was the defending champion and then push L.A., a team that I thought was really good, to the brink," he said.
Pareja retired from playing in 2005 and has been an assistant for his former side ever since. Rhine, on the other hand, is in his ninth season with FCD, making him the team's longest tenured player. Earlier this year, he played in his 200th career and he also has 11 playoff games to his credit, second only to Carlos Ruiz, who has played in 15 postseason affairs.
Since 1999, the Hoops have been one-and-done in the playoffs. There were defeats in 2000 by the MetroStars (that club's only postseason success) and Chicago in '01. In 2002, they lost a three-game series with Colorado, the deciding blow at home at the Cotton Bowl. FCD missed the playoffs in both 2003 and 2004 before returning in 2005 and again was eliminated by the Rapids, this time on penalty kicks, again at home. It was the same result for FCD last year.
When asked why the Hoops have failed to get over the first-round playoff hump in their last five trips to the playoffs, Pareja thinks it all boils down to form.
"It's a momentum thing going into the playoffs," Pareja said. "It happens in the World Cup as well. In a short period of time, you have to get into the moment and in the right place mentally. You have to have guys with the right attitude and mentality and they have to perform at a peak level.
"In the playoffs, you want a group with a good mentality that thinks they can go far," he said. "You need everybody with the same goals and fit to create that momentum that we had in 1999. On that team, everybody believed that we could win and do good things. If I have to point something out from those playoffs, I felt that everybody believed and that made a huge difference. This year, hopefully the boys understand that we've got to believe. It's probably not going to be the best team that wins the (MLS) Cup, it will be the team that works the hardest."
For Rhine, the Hoops' recent postseason failures properly illustrate the parity in MLS.
"I think the status of our club has never been better," he said. "You look around the league and we're probably one of the better clubs over the last three seasons in particular. That hasn't correlated to a trophy in our trophy case.
"We had a couple of poor seasons with the Burn there in 2001 and 2002 but we've kind of put ourselves back in the upper echelon of the league. It speaks volumes about the parity in Major League Soccer. You look at the schedules of every team and they will have a bad result in there and that says a lot about even the teams that didn't make the playoffs."
Steve Hunt is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
