It perhaps has not been the ideal Generation adidas Cup from an MLS perspective. MLS sides won just one of the four Champions Division groups (all hail New York Red Bulls), which means only one of the four semifinalists will be repping the hosting domestic league. In the grand scheme, it’s not that big a deal. This is a developmentally-focused tournament, after all. But we’re dealing with competitive folks here. Wins are fun.

In any case, the marquee matchup of this event from the off was always FC Dallas and Real Madrid. Ironically, the two met on Wednesday with little of substance to actually play for; the relatively unheralded Independiente del Valle from Ecuador had already won the group and made the FCD-Real Madrid matchup about table scraps.

You certainly could’ve fooled us, because FCD notched one of its most impressive youth wins ever on Tuesday night.

Thanks to this Brayan Padilla goal (it was his 23rd of the season), FCD bulled past vaunted Real Madrid 1-0 in Frisco. It was all the more impressive because most of FCD’s best U17s (Paxton Pomykal and Jesus Ferreira, notably) are competing across town in the older division at the Dallas Cup, where they managed to smash visiting Everton 5-0 late last week. Real Madrid didn’t bring an A-Team, but they did bring an old one – they had quadruple the number of 2000s (the oldest age group available here) as FCD did.

Here’s the goal. Not the prettiest on planet Earth, but that initial cutback was a thing of beauty. FCD has been considered the top academy in the U.S. for a few years now. This will do nothing to deter those lofty thoughts.