There are different kinds of losses for soccer fans. The less painful kind comes when the opposition is clearly better and despite a strong performance from the home town club the result just isn't there.

Then there are losses that hurt - like the one by FC Dallas on Wednesday night in the US Open Cup - where the opposition is from a lower league and your club of choice doesn't bother to show up. At least not till the very end in this case.

It was a story of way too little, way too late for FC Dallas against New Mexico United.

Let's break it down.

Lineups and Tactics

FC Dallas used the same team and shape as their Open Cup match last week with one change. After Jacori Hayes picked up a knock, Edwin Cerrillo was in the lineup instead as one of the dual 6/8s.

FC Dallas starting XI against New Mexico United in the 2019 US Open Cup. (6-19-19) (FCD / FC Dallas)

Coach Luchi Gonzalez brought in Paxton Pomykal in the 58th minute for Ricardo Pepi, shifting Dom Badji to the 9 and Jesus Ferreira to right-wing.

Then in the 75th minute, Zdenek Ondrasek came on for Brandon Servania as FCD tried to overload the box. And finally, Thomas Roberts came on for Bryan Reynolds in the 85th minute in an all-out effort to get a goal.

New Mexico played a fairly old school 4-4-2 with Kevaughn Frater in a withdrawn, off-striker role behind the #9 Devon Sandoval (not shown in the image).

New Mexico United's starting XI against FC Dallas in the 2019 US Open Cup. (6-19-19) (NMU / New Mexico United)

Protecting the 2-1 lead, United brought on Saalih Muhammad for Sandoval in the 75th minute, Rashid Tetteh for Christopher Wehan in the midfield in the 80th minute, and Manny Padilla for Ethen Sampson in defense in the 84th minute.

Goals

1-0 FC Dallas goal. 41st minute. A truly fantastic strike by Brandon Servania. One of the bright spots of the evening. Off a corner - FCD's third goal off a corner in two games - Servania rips a cracker to the back post. Michael Barrios with the service off the corner. Just beautiful.

Obviously, it's gonna help your confidence. Now I'm looking to shoot a little bit more. I have my teammates support, my coaches support, and I'm honestly just doing whatever I can to help the team, so if taking more shots is going to help us win games, that's what I'm going to do. - Brandon Servania

1-1 New Mexico United goal. 45th minute. Pretty quickly after the restart, Bryan Reynolds makes a poor back pass and NMU steals the ball in the box. One pass later and Kevaughn Frater ties the game. Yikes.

1-2 New Mexico United goal. 64th minute. Ryan Hollingshead fouls Kevaughn Frater near the corner flag as he's going away from goal. (Soccer 101 kids, don't foul a player dribbling away from goal.) On the resulting sorta-corner, FCD is unable to clear and after a couple of bounces, shots, and near-clears, Sam Hamilton slams home the winner for New Mexico.

El Bueno

Matt Hedges was my Man of the Match. He completely bottled up Devon Sandoval who had no shots and Hedges did it without fouling a single time. Hedges also seemed to be trying to lift his team, cajoling them to raise their game. If everyone would have brought their A-game mentality like Hedges - who always does - this result would have gone the other way.

Kevaughn Frater of New Mexico looked pretty legit to me. He plays with a chip on his shoulder and Cerrillo/Servania didn't know how to handle him. He's particularly good at drawing fouls, earning 5 on the night. That's something I've talked multiple times about young players needing to learn, Paxton Pomykal is quite good at it for a young player. Frater was the key difference maker for United and pretty much the reason they won. He had the tying goal, 3 shots in total, and drew the foul that led to the 2nd goal. He's also tied for the USL-C lead in goals with 10.

New Mexico keeper Cody Mizell made 6 saves on the night. That's a terrific performance as well no matter the quality of the shots.

El Camino del Medio

I was quite pleased to see Paxton Pomykal get into the game, just to get him up to speed for the resumption of MLS play this weekend. He was, of course, terrific in his short 32-minute run. 3 shots, 1 key pass, and lots of touches. He couldn't find a gap to break the game though as NMU went low-block with 9 men in the box after Pomykal came on.

Despite the loss, FCD dominated in many ways. 61% possession and 86% passing accuracy leading to 14 shots 7 of which were on target. So again, Luchi-Ball is not creating enough opportunities yet. Too many of the shots/chances that were created came late and from way too far out.

Ricardo Pepi was fine for me. He again showed his potential with the game reading, work rate, off-ball running, and movement. He didn't score, but for now, that's ok. At some point, it will come. Or not and we'll stop talking about him. There's no rush here. I also understand why he was taken off when the team was trailing.

Muy Feo

I spent a lot of the first half tweeting about how FCD was losing the intensity moments. 50/50s, lose balls, recoveries... the hustle stuff. Yes, it was hot. Yes, it's hard to get up for a lower division opponent. But you gotta know that for a USL side this is their chance to show they are MLS level. Every guy out there is playing for his career and it showed. FCD was too content to pass the ball around at midfield. Too content to just assume something would come. On a night FCD lost to a USL side, they had only 2 yellow cards (to 4), just 15 fouls (to 12), and 9 tackles won (to 11). Where was the fight?

Bryan Reynolds had a come-back-to-earth game. In the first half, he was just content to lollygag it around. His back pass that led to the goal is a perfect example of that. Reynolds needs to remember what got him here, why he's in the team. He's got game-breaking pace and skill going forward. Reynolds needs to turn his body into an attacking position before the ball gets to him, change gears, explode, and break the defense. Sometimes cut inside, sometimes to the end, but put the D under pressure. His 2nd half was better, particularly later on, but it just wasn't good enough overall. I'd still start him vs Toronto on Saturday though.

Dom Badji had a really poor night for me. He too was content to just pass the ball around. United was in a mid-block for the first 65 minutes and Badji didn't try to get behind or split them. Compare his chart to Micheal Barrios (I turned off all but two corners), there just isn't the verticality there. FCD needs more from him if he's going to keep the left wing job.

Passing charts for Dom Badji (left) and Michael Barrios (right) against New Mexico United in the 2019 US Open Cup. (6-19-19) (MLS / MLS)

Jesus Ferreira looked a bit lost to me. He did not deal well at all with the double mids of New Mexico. He spent a lot of the game coming back to Cerrillo/Servania or wide on top of the outside backs. His chart isn't terrible, there are a couple penetrating passes, but I didn't see that knifing drive that cut the OKC defense repeatedly last week (the dribbles are the triangles, circles are shots). But, you know, he's a striker, not a playmaking 10.

Jesus Ferreira's passing, dribble, and shot chart against New Mexico United in the 2019 US Open Cup. (6-19-19) (MLS / MLS)

In 15 minutes of play, Zdenek Ondrasek had 0 shots, was 2 for 3 in passes, and had no defensive registers, no dribbles, and no fouls received or given. Not even sure why he was in the game.

I felt like there was a bit of a disconnect between Edwin Cerrillo and Brandon Servania, at least compared to last week when Jacori Hayes was in there. Neither Cerrillo nor Servania did much linking forward like an 8. With two guys in there playing the 6/8 hybrid role, someone needs to go forward into the mixer. I don't think either played poorly per se, but neither give that Bryan Acosta like forward threat. You can clearly see it in their charts that there is a lack of final third activity. They also committed 7 fouls committed between them but a lot of those were ticky/tacky.

Edwin Cerrillo and Brandon Servania's passing charts against New Mexico United in the 2019 US Open Cup. (6-19-19) (MLS / MLS)

Obviously, the end result isn't what we expected or what we wanted, but we pushed, we did have a few young guys on the field, and I think we are going to learn from that. I just think we can do better, we know we can do better. - Brandon Servania

I could probably go on, but that's enough of a beating for now.

Next Game

FC Dallas gets right back into the MLS regular season Saturday against Toronto FC. Kickoff is scheduled for 7 pm CT at Toyota Stadium.

We only have ourselves to blame for this and I'm the one responsible. We'll learn and we'll move on and we'll be ready to respond. This frustration, we'll channel into a response in the game we have this weekend against Toronto. - Luchi Gonzalez