Former FC Dallas coach Oscar Pareja made a return to Frisco, and brought his Xolos side to Toyota Stadium as part of their preparation for the Liga MX Apertura. The scoreless draw gave Luchi Gonzalez a chance to test some of his younger players against a largely first-choice Xolos team who are admittedly still in preseason mode.

There weren't any goals for the sparse Toyota Stadium crowd as only the west side was opened, but there was some action to get fans talking.

Lineup and tactics

Coach Gonzalez only kept one player from the starting lineup in the 2-0 win over DC United on Thursday. Bressan moved to his usual center back spot and picked up the captain's armband. He partnered Callum Montgomery in the center of defense, flanked by Bryan Reynolds on the right and 15-year-old Jonathan Gomez on the left. Believe the hype about him, Buzz didn't disappoint you with projecting Pepi or Cerrillo as MLS players last year.

Edwin Cerrillo and Jacori Hayes played their usual hybrid 6/8 roles with Hayes the higher. Thomas Roberts was the preferred choice at the 10 spot, which pushed Pablo Aranguiz over to the left - somewhere he performed well for Chile in the recent Toulon Tournament. Francis Atuahene returned from his loan to start on the right wing, with Ricardo Pepi up top.

Aranguiz unfortunately threw a wrench in the works as he was sent off in the first half (more about that later). Gonzalez revealed after the game that the red card meant that Zdenek Ondrasek didn't feature. Oscar Pareja had asked if the referee could restore FC Dallas to eleven players, which would have seen Ondrasek play, but the referee could not.

"There was a player that didn't get to play in the game that I just physically didn't have the sub for so, I'm disappointed in that circumstance. That player is a great professional and showed a lot of respect and of course understands it is what it is. That was the situation." - Coach Gonzalez

The other switch-up that came of the red card was Thomas Roberts moving to more of a left role setting Dallas up as more of a 4-2-3/4-2-2-1.

The first changes came at half time as starting keeper Kyle Zobeck made way for Jimmy Maurer, and Alfusainey Jatta of North Texas SC replaced Bressan. Jatta is usually a holding midfielder and arguably one of the best passers at FC Dallas. It's possible that the move was to compensate for Callum Montgomery's weakness in the passing game, something that is central to Luchiball.

The customary mass change for any friendly came in the 69th minute. It was largely like-for-like changes with Ema Twumasi replacing Gomez. Twumasi went to right back and Reynolds went left - that's not something we've seen from Twumasi before and we'll get to a little later. Brandon Servania came in for Cerrillo in the deeper of the midfield spots, while Bryan Acosta replaced Hayes further up. Santiago Mosquera (Roberts) continued with his recent left wing run, while Jesus Ferreira (Atuahene) switched over to the right wing. After getting some time up front against DC United, Dominique Badji replaced Pepi.

Club Tijuana Xoloitzcuintles de Caliente lineup at the start and finish of a friendly with FC Dallas on 7/7/19. (Chosen XI / 3rd Degree)

Oscar Pareja left the 4-2-3-1 behind when he took the job with Club Tijuana. He rolled out a double pivot 4-4-2 with former Houston Dynamo players Leonel Miranda and Erick "Cubo" Torres both getting the start among an almost first-choice XI. For context, of the 11 players who played both legs of the Liguilla defeat to Club Leon, the only three players missing have either left Xolos or, in Gustavo Bou's case, about to join New England for a reported $5m.

It's a little easier to show the teams at the start and end rather than detail all of Xolos' like-for-like substitutions throughout the game.

Goals

There weren't any but both sides created a few chances.

15' - Thomas Roberts plays a fantastic through ball between the two center backs to spring Pablo Aranguiz into the box. One of the center backs recovers, forcing Aranguiz to turn away and straight into two recovering defenders as a heavy touch gets away from him.

19' - Angel Sepulveda gets a close range header off a cross. Zobeck punches the ball off Erick Torres, Bressan attempts to clear with Sepulveda chasing the loose ball to the byline. The assistant raises his flag for offside on Torres.

45'+1 - Francis Atuahene brought his shooting boots, but his best chance came at the end of the first half. Ricardo Pepi won a tussle with Diego Braghieri out wide and aims a cut back to Aranguiz. The ball ricochets off a defender and falls to Atuahene, who smashes the ball low and narrowly wide of the keeper's left post.

86' - Servania receives the ball from Ferreira and stung a low shot from distance that the keeper could only palm wide. Off the resulting corner, the ball ended up falling nicely to Mosquera with a decent sight at goal from 20 yards. He opted to try a lob but could only find the roof of the net.

90'+1 - Miller Bolaños plays Ariel Nahuelpan in. He gets past Twumasi and shoots low as Jatta closes in. Maurer parries it to his right but Nahuelpan is able to react first, forcing a second save as Maurer puts the ball out for a corner.

Thoughts and Observations

It was about as expected. I thought Xolos would be a little more threatening given that it was essentially a first-choice lineup, but they're in preseason mode with around 10 days to go until they start back up against Puebla. With the trip to Minnesota coming up this weekend, it was good to see some first teamers get 20 minutes while some of the fringe players got solid reps against a good team.

"Good to get some young guys opportunities, some valuable minutes for their confidence, for their fitness, their rhythm. We got to rest some guys that have played a lot of minutes. We'll come back together Tuesday and compete as a group and get ready for the opportunity we have against Minnesota." - Coach Gonzalez

Pablo Aranguiz is really doing himself no favors. I don't see him as a 90-minute player, his best performances seem to be off the bench while he wilts far too early to be a consistent starter. Oscar Pareja certainly protected Aranguiz in his first half-season, but we're now two weeks shy of a year in and have really yet to see anything worthwhile from the Chilean. One assist in 20 appearances, and only going the full 90 twice. There is talk of some personal issues going on, particularly with his family in Chile. There's also a lot of talk in Chile about him possibly moving back, perhaps that would be best for all parties involved.

Back to this game, it was actually the best I've seen Aranguiz play defensively, he won a couple of balls at the top of the Dallas box and his tracking back was exactly what you want from an inverted winger. He was wasteful in possession, eager to take a dive and then quick to scald the officials. He received his final warning inside 10 minutes and hadn't been whistled for a foul, such was his attitude towards the officials. The incident in the 4th minute of first half stoppage time came as he shielded the ball, threw a shoulder and appeared to include an elbow in the sternum for good measure. The referee didn't have a great view behind both players, but the Fourth Official had a perfect view and signaled to the ref, who quickly swapped the yellow card in his hand for a red.

If you follow North Texas SC, and our player rankings, you'll have heard this time and time again. Callum Montgomery is a fantastic defender but his passing is a weak point in Luchiball. I think he would be a fixture in a lot of MLS teams' 18-man roster, but in this possession-first style he's got to improve on distribution. I do wonder if pairing him with Bressan and then Jatta - two solid distributors - was to provide the Canadian with an easy outlet in the passing game. There were a couple of points where he tried to play out of the back and just played Jonathan Gomez into trouble. He's improving, he's not defaulting to a clearance to the winger which was something that ESPN+ have talked about in NTXSC games. Playing against pressing attackers like that will help, playing in USL-1 is helping. He's well ahead of most 22-year-old North American center backs, but a work in progress.

Speaking of Gomez, you'd never guess he was a 15-year-old playing against a contending Liga MX team. He grew into the game, and really showed why everyone who watches the academy is raving about him as the next fullback to come through.

"He [Gomez] had some nerves, he took some extra touches where he could have played quicker in the beginning but he adapted. He grew as the game went on and I thought he finished the game very well. Not comfortable but conditioned to the environment, the speed. He has a great future and he's going to have to keep working to earn his next steps, and hopefully that's with the first team" - Coach Gonzalez

If you read my feature on Ricardo Pepi for MLS recently, you'll remember that Luchi Gonzalez said they'll review Pepi's progress every three or so weeks. If he's getting minutes, he's with the first team. If he isn't, he's with North Texas SC. His limited time with the first team thus far seems to be paying off. In 70 minutes I saw a more physical player capable of holding up play than we've seen with North Texas SC. USL League One is great to get reps and staying sharp, but the football intelligence of the opposition is often questionable, which leaves a player like Pepi able to just burn straight past them. The shield and turn on Braghieri was a perfect example of being pushed outside by a bigger player and being inventive.

We've seen Bryan Reynolds drop from right wing to right back and pick up the position quickly, and we may be seeing something similar from Ema Twumasi. A couple of training drills led to experimenting with the Ghanaian at right back as coach explains:

"We wanted to get Ema in there somehow. We tried him at right back yesterday and he did well in some of our tactical exercises and it showed us that we had the confidence to play him in a real game. I thought for the most part he did well. He was good in the duels. He got that one play where he was beat behind, he was in a half-space but he quickly learned from it and adjusted, kept things in front. In playing out he got forward a few times, so it's potentially a position he can play in the future." - Coach Gonzalez

The second part to that is Bryan Reynolds switching to left back. He's always been a right-sided player, so that's an interesting change. We're looking at Johnny Nelson as the long-term starter, but he's currently dealing with an injury. Ryan Hollingshead is the current starting left back, but Reynolds may develop as a solid back-up for either spot when chasing the game until the likely time that Reggie Cannon moves on. Oh, he's also being linked with a $5m winter move to Olympique de Marseille on the back of his Gold Cup performances.

It was great to see Oscar Pareja back at Toyota Stadium. He has so much pride in seeing players that he gave debuts to succeed as much as he has for players he integrated in first team practices that are now getting their time, like Edwin Cerrillo.

"That's the journey, now they have more experience and they're competing. I think the USL program is helping them a lot too. It's good, very good. I'm very excited and happy to see them develop." - Oscar Pareja

Talking to Papi after the game, it stuck out that he doesn't talk about Frisco, the stadium, or the club, he only talks about home.

Next Game

Dallas are back on the road Saturday at Minnesota United. The Loons are in some incredible form right now, with five straight wins in all competitions. In that time they've amassed 20 goals, scoring at least three in each game. They will host New Mexico United in the US Open Cup on Wednesday. The weekend's results pushed Dallas from third in the West to fifth, a point behind Minnesota who also have a game in hand. That makes Saturday's game a genuine six pointer.