Another day out on the beautiful training ground for FC Dallas. Today the temps were just above 80 but the humidity was worse than usual. It made for a sweaty day.

The entire U19 academy team was in training today. They usually end their own session right about when the senior side is starting. Today the u19s basically served a role of "living dummies" in the sense they replicated Vancouver. You'll see below.

News and Notes

Paxton Pomykal is back in training. He looks solid. Like he's put on a little muscle mass. That's really good, he needed some strength. He also slotted right back in as the Mauro Diaz back up and also got some time at right wing.

Bryan Reynolds at right back continues to be a thing. He's growing into it.

Jordan Cano and Ema Twumasi are both here training. FCD Head Coach Oscar Pareja told me yesterday that neither of them nor Francis Atuahene would play for OKC in any US Open Cup games.

Speaking of Francis Atuahene, Pareja says he's about a week away from returning to training.

Brandon Servania continues to look really sharp to me. I think he's pressing hard for time at one of the deep mid spots. It may be hard to come by, but this kid is showing.

If by chance you are worried that Servania and Pomykal might conflict in their efforts for PT, that's no problem. Servania is an 8. Pomykal is a 10 or wing. Now we do see Pomykal pop up in some reserve or academy situations as a 6/8 type. He can do it, but mostly that's just fill in. With the senior team, he's an advanced, attacking midfielder.

Kris Reaves is still missing after his sports hernia surgery. Another month for him I think.

Chris Richards is still with the US U20s, but wouldn't be activated till after the MLS season anyway.

Training observations

After the warm-up, jogging, cones, lines, and other types of work, FCD split into two group. Josema Bazan worked with the offense and Marco Ferruzzi with the defense.

Since both sets of this drill are senior side versus academy they aren't quite full physicality. The Academy kids are good players but this is more of a half pace set up than "real" game conditions. The U19s replicate the Vancouver shapes and the FCD coaches give them directions that replicate the style of the Whitecaps. Think of them as a practice squad from American football.

Offense: Josema Bazan

This group was the FCD front 4 playing against an Academy 6 + some of the tall yellow figure dummies. This drill is mostly about the FCD front 4 working their rotations and patterns, spotting gaps, exploiting holes where they think they can get at Vancouver.

Green (the academy starting back 6 from the game against Houston last Saturday): Chris Cappis, Edwin Cerrillo, Chris Fuentes, Imanol Almaguer, Holland Rula, and Alex Bautista.

Gray (4 play at a time): Maxi Urruti, Cristian Colman, Roland Lamah, Tesho Akindele, Ema Twumasi, Mauro Diaz, Paxton Pomykal, Michael Barrios, Santiago Mosquera.

Defense: Marco Ferruzzi

The FC Dallas back 6 + a keeper play against 8 of the U19s (set up as the forwards + midfielders + two attacking outside back). For this drill the FCD back 5 build out from the keeper and try to pass to two "strikers" behind the Red team (being played by two more U19s). When they do, the Red team immediately counter-attacks. FCD's back 6 have to recover quickly into their defensive shape and hold them off.

Red: A bunch of U19s. I only know a few by sight including Thomas Roberts, Gibran Rayo, Emmanuel Paga, and Ronaldo Damus.

Gray (6 of these 12 play at a time): Kellyn Acosta, Carlos Gruezo, Jacori Hayes, Victor Ulloa, Anton Nedyalkov, Maynor Figueroa, Matt Hedges, Reggie Cannon, Ryan Hollingshead, Reto Ziegler, Jordan Cano, and Bryan Reynolds.

In the early version of this drill, Red drops off and allows Gray to play around with the ball in the back. In The later version, Red does a high press and tries to steal as Gray builds out.

Final Drill

After about 30 minutes of the above, the Academy all take off for the day except Chris Cappis. The big final drill was two FCD teams going head to head.

The Gray team looked exactly like what I might predict would be the lineup for this weekend so I won't mention the personnel. Gray also had a full goal with a keeper behind them to defend but "scored" on the other end by having a player dribble through 1 of 3 ten yard goals made with flags. Red was in a different shape and again were playing as Vancouver. So this drill too was mainly about building out versus a press (or no press) and then defending a direct style counter.

Since FCD has more than 22 field players right now, Cappis and Ferreira went to the other end of the training ground where Cappis hit crosses to Ferreira. Ferreira did rotate into the drill and Cappis continued to hit crosses for different players.

Catching up with Oscar Pareja

Without having watched practice at all, Maynor Figueroa seems like the obvious person to fill in for Reto Ziegler. Can you talk about the luxury of having a player with such experience in the back to step in?

Right. Maynor is one of the options. To be quite honest, we're thinking on probably change the model if it's necessary, utilize different players.

But, talking about the luxury to have experience of someone like him is important. That applies to the team, having anybody with his professionalism.

We talked about Brandon Servania last week, so perhaps not in regard to him specifically... But do you feel any obligation when a young guy is showing well in training to think, "Now I have to get him some minutes?" Or is it just week to week, "This is what I have to do to face this opponent?"

The good news is that we have many of them doing a good job during the training. The bad news is that we need to line up just eleven. And to have people that aren't in the lineup, that are playing well also. Or others that aren't in the 18 roster are doing a great job in the training.

What happens when you have some players who are maybe young and not getting much minutes, maybe eventually they will be playing somewhere else, Oklahoma or Tulsa or somewhere. That's just the limits that we have to deal with.

Are you able to get enough games between Academy, loan games, or whatever else scrimmages you organize for those guys?

No... No. We all know that's now enough.

What do you think the solution is there?

Well, we are bringing the USL next year. That's the solution. You can see we're in the process to do it.

Other than that you can have as many academy games as you can, but that is a stage they are already passed by. If I have to do it we'll do it. And simulations on the trainings, a couple inter-squads that you can do against the academy or something.

But the real minutes in the professional competition is important, having these guys there in a team. That's something that we have to deal with.

I saw Paxton Pomykal is back in training, how does he look to you?

He's good, looking stronger. I'm always afraid with the boys that come from the recovery to have some weaknesses or some movement that indicates they are tentative or something... but that's not the case with him.

How was Kellyn Acosta's 60 minutes in your opinion?

I reviewed the game, and I did it again because of him... because I wanted to really see and be objective in the evaluation. I thought Kellyn's game was much better than we all thought.

Is he ready to go a full 90 now?

In terms of minutes, maybe not. Not 90, not just yet.

Consistency with the level that we all know about Kellyn and things like that, is a process. It's a process, you know that. He struggled with the precision, it's just going to be building him up into what we want.