An all encompassing look at the reign, rise, and demise of Schellas Hyndman’s career as FC Dallas’ manager is in the works, but it will not end until the final whistle this afternoon in Northern California.
FCD is no longer in the playoff hunt, and they haven’t been for weeks. The cracks were evident and the chance of missing the playoffs for a second year on the trot during the summer malaise that sent the team near the basement of the Western Conference.
In a twist of fate, San Jose suffered from an awful run of form early in 2013 and dismissed their manager Frank Yallop shortly into the summer months. But the Quakes have been resurgent since, and have climbed high enough to put themselves on the brink of the 2013 MLS playoffs. FCD, even with its stellar beginning to the season, can’t even boast that.
Certainly the climb for San Jose hasn’t been pretty. It never is, actually. The football flowing out of Buck Shaw stadium usually fails to awe but it is effective enough, and most times physical enough, to make its walls impenetrable.
The meaning for San Jose is evident in tonight’s match: win, and they might be in. They at least have a chance to sit at the table and wait for results to fall their way over the weekend, if they even do. Dallas will look for closure for 2013. Some would say a thankful end to a squandered season. In a broader sense it will be the end of a head coach’s career who has been a soccer staple in the Dallas area for decades.
It will be interesting to see if there will be any fight from FCD, given the emotion of the moment. Rumors abounded this summer during the winless streak that the locker room had been lost. If so, this may be very straightforward for the Quakes. If not, and Dallas shows great spirit in this finale, it could be yet another high scoring affair that we have grown accustomed to when FCD visits Northern California.
But it would be hasty to sum up Hyndman’s career without taking tonight into account. Much of what is left on the field by his players, many of which he has coached since their careers were in their infancy, will certainly add more color to the overall picture painted of the man in the coming weeks, months, or years. If whomever steps on the pitch for Dallas tonight can’t get up for sending their coach off in grand fashion, they will probably at least be able to do it with contracts and option years on the line.
11-11-11 is an amazingly inconsistent record: neither grand, nor woeful, nor mediocre. Just unpredictable. Where does tonight’s match, Hyndman’s sendoff match, tally itself afterwards? Once again, great meaning can be gained tonight on the evaluation of Schellas’ final season in Dallas based on what his players leave and withhold on the field.
