The Dynamo’s players trained at Houston Sports Park on Thursday night but would much preferred to have been nine miles north at BBVA Compass Stadium, taking on Manchester City.
Still, after the dire recent weather forced the cancellation of the BBAV Compass Dynamo Charities Cup match less than four hours before kick off, the team tried to look on the bright side: missing out on facing the English Premier League giants gave Houston a little extra preparation time for Saturday’s MLS clash away to New York City FC (6 p.m. CT; ROOT SPORTS).
“Of course it’s disappointing when any game’s canceled but particularly one of the magnitude of Manchester City. It would have been nice for our players to experience the quality of Manchester City and it’s been curtailed. There’s not a lot more we could have done about it in terms of how hard everybody at the club worked [to get the field ready]. But we now have to get ready for New York City,” head coach Owen Coyle told HoustonDynamo.com.
“It was important given the game was canceled that we still worked to get preparations ahead of Saturday and that’s what we did, we got out here on the training ground and we had a very good training session.”
The Dynamo trained for about 90 minutes on Thursday and were scheduled to fly into New York on Friday evening. “It would have been really fun to play those guys but unfortunately Mother Nature had different plans,” said striker Will Bruin.
“Obviously it was a weird week of training schedules, preparing for a game Thursday, being ready all day Thursday for a game and then coming into training kind of throws things off but it’s all behind us now and now the focus is on New York.”
While they missed out on facing each other on the field in Texas, City and the Dynamo may cross paths in the Big Apple because Manuel Pellegrini’s players are expected to watch the match at Yankee Stadium during their visit to the city. The club’s owners have a majority stake in NYCFC, who joined MLS this year.
Saturday’s encounter will be the first MLS meeting between the clubs and the only one in this regular season—though they faced each other in Charleston during preseason. The Dynamo emerged with a 2-1 victory courtesy of goals from Brad Davis and Boniek García.
Bruin is looking forward to taking the field in one of American sport’s most iconic venues. “For sure it’ll be fun. I think the last time I played in a baseball stadium was at Indiana University, can’t remember where, but the field is definitely more narrow when you play in baseball stadiums. I’ve never been to Yankee Stadium so it’ll be pretty fun,” he said.
Managed by former Real Salt Lake coach Jason Kreis, MLS life began promisingly for NYCFC: a tie with fellow newcomers Orlando City SC in front of more than 62,000 at the Citrus Bowl, a home win over the New England Revolution and a point on the road to the Colorado Rapids. Since, they’ve lost seven and drawn two of nine matches and are bottom of the Eastern Conference.
Marquee signing Frank Lampard is expected to make his debut in July. In the meantime, the team’s star names are USMNT midfielder Mix Diskerud and veteran former Barcelona striker David Villa, who is the Spanish national team’s all-time leading scorer and a World Cup winner. The 34-year-old has two goals and two assists in nine MLS appearances.
“We’re not friends but we’ve played against each other I don’t know, five or six times. I met him in preseason and we talked, I have a good relationship with him off the field,” said Dynamo defender Raúl Rodríguez, who was born in Barcelona and played for the city’s other top-level side, Espanyol, before moving to Houston this year.
“He’s a very important player for them and it’s a big moment for the fans when you have these kind of players. It’s going to be exciting. We’re in a very good moment, we’ve played well in the last three games so I think that we’re ready.”
After defeats by FC Dallas and the San Jose Earthquakes at the start of May, the Dynamo beat Toronto FC 2-1 on the road, overcame the Portland Timbers 3-1 at home then suffered the frustration of losing 1-0 to the Los Angeles Galaxy last Friday thanks to a stoppage-time goal.
“We’ve played well, we definitely had our chances to go into LA and win, and unfortunately Alan Gordon, who scores all his goals in the 95th minute, got a header. That’s the fine margins of the game. We should have had some goals, I should have scored one early on, but that’s how the game goes sometimes,” said Bruin.
Coyle wants another solid road performance on Saturday to continue the upward trend. “We played very well at Toronto, against Portland and LA Galaxy when we should have had a positive result. We have to continue in that vein of form,” he said.
Tom Dart is a contributing writer to HoustonDynamo.com and HoustonDashSoccer.com. Former editor and reporter for The Times of London and reporter for SI.com, Dart currently freelances for The Guardian.
