Before the start of the 2015 MLS season, no one picked FC Dallas to win the Western Conference, much less the Supporters’ Shield or MLS Cup. With three games remaining in the regular season however, FC Dallas (with a game in hand) is tied with LA Galaxy on 51 points atop the Western Conference and three points behind New York Red Bulls in the Supporters’ Shield race. Dallas’ results have been up and down just enough in 2015 to keep them flying under the radar most of the season, but now, as Taylor Twellman said during last Sunday’s ESPN2 broadcast of Dallas’ 4-1 defeat of Houston Dynamo, “No one wants to play them [FC Dallas], particularly going into the playoffs.”

Not that FC Dallas’ 2015 results have come out of nowhere. Dallas finished fourth in the Western Conference in 2014, bowing out of the playoffs in the Conference semifinals against 2014 Supporters’ Shield winner Seattle Sounders via the away goal rule after 1-1 and 0-0 draws.

Though 2015 has been a boom year for Designated Players in the league, FC Dallas has persevered with the second smallest payroll in MLS. By comparison, the $4 million base salary of LA Galaxy’s latest DP signing Giovani Dos Santos alone is more than the base salaries of FC Dallas’ entire roster combined. With this relatively shoestring budget, second-year head coach Oscar Pareja has developed stability in all areas of the field, using primarily young players, solid goalkeeping from veteran Dan Kennedy, and lately, 20-year-old Jesse Gonzalez; a generally reliable defense anchored by team captain Matt Hedges and Zach Loyd in the center, along with wing back convert Je-Vaughn Watson; a robust central midfield in homegrown youngsters Victor Ulloa and Kellyn Acosta; offensive creativity from Mauro Diaz, and attacking speed from wingers Fabian Castillo and Michael Barrios.

SEE MORE: A convert’s journey to MLS: A review of ‘Dallas ‘Til I Cry’

The go-to story regarding FC Dallas in limited national soccer media coverage revolves around the club’s successful academy system, and the league-leading number of “home grown” minutes by academy products for the first team. FC Dallas does have a model academy system (in which it invests heavily financially) and it is paying dividends, but the bulk of those homegrown minutes in 2015 have come from midfielders Ulloa and Acosta (another homegrown signing, Jesse Gonzalez, has started the last eight games in place of injured goalkeeper Dan Kennedy). However, the rest of the typical FC Dallas starters are a mix of college draft picks like Hedges, Loyd, Ryan Hollingshead, or Tesho Akindele, MLS journeyman Atiba Harris, Jamaican international Je-Vaughn Watson, and young South Americans Diaz, Castillo, Barrios, and David Texeira.

Most pundits understandably pinned FC Dallas’ 2015 season prospects on having a healthy Mauro Diaz after the promising Argentine missed half of the 2014 season to injury. The team is usually better with Diaz on the field, but this year’s success has often been in spite of Diaz who has mysteriously disappeared for long stretches again this season, missing a third of the team’s games purportedly due to various injuries, though the club and Pareja have been consistently stingy with specifics.

Dallas’ worst kept secret now is Fabian Castillo, who has blossomed under Oscar Pareja’s tutelage. There is a definite father-son bond between the two, as Castillo even lived with Pareja’s family for a time when Castillo first arrived at FC Dallas in 2011 (Pareja was first team assistant coach and director of player development for the FC Dallas youth system at that time). Recently Castillo earned his first two call-ups for the Colombian national team, making a late substitute appearance Thursday night in Colombia’s 2-0 win over Peru in World Cup qualifying. His goal production has slowed in the second half of this season as teams have prioritized trying to neutralize his remarkable speed and finishing ability in the box. The added spotlight on Castillo has freed space for Barrios, his Colombian counterpart on the opposite wing, as well as Uruguayan forward David Texeira who has very slowly developed into a consistent starter in recent weeks.

A real surprise in Pareja’s lineups recently is the exclusion of Panamanian international Blas Perez. The second highest-paid player on the team (behind Mauro Diaz), Perez has been the team’s primary striker for much of his first three seasons in Dallas, leading the team in goals in each of those seasons. This year however, a mix of international duty, injury, and apparent lack of form have limited Perez to just 5 goals in 14 starts for the team, leading to speculation that the 34-year-old’s time at FC Dallas is nearing expiration.

Despite the team’s relatively consistent results this season, off the field there has been significant fan restlessness over the reluctance of the team’s owners (Hunt Sports Group) to keep up with other MLS teams in spending on Designated Players and in their general treatment of fans via a lack of comparable perks and overall customer service. Attendance is below the 2014 level and fan discontent bubbled over this summer with protest signs and banners at home matches and a “#sadFCDfan” Twitter campaign.

SEE MORE: While FC Dallas’ attendances are down, MLS average attendances are up 16%.

Fan ire toward ownership grew particularly loud with the recent release of 2016 season ticket prices, which include significant price increases in certain seating areas of Toyota Stadium. Though there is much disagreement among fans about the merit of this development, the price increases are apparently related to the construction of the new U.S. National Soccer Hall of Fame, which will be integrated with the current Toyota Stadium structure and will include several upgrades to the ten-year-old stadium itself. The $39 million project will include 95,000 square feet of additional facilities (including the Hall of Fame) and construction will close off the stadium’s south end seating for the 2016 season, temporarily reducing the stadium’s capacity by 4,000 seats.

Ironically, despite its frugal approach and atypical fan backlash, FC Dallas is still among the front-runners to earn home field advantage for the MLS Cup playoffs as well as win the Supporters’ Shield, which would be the club’s first trophy since the 1997 U.S. Open Cup. Dallas played to a 0-0 draw at Vancouver Whitecaps on Wednesday, and in a typical MLS scheduling quirk, the Whitecaps will play at Dallas again next Wednesday in a match with plenty of playoff and Supporters’ Shield implications.