Saturday evening, the Houston Dynamo welcomes the earthquakes of San Jose on the Gulf Shore of Texas with a chance for the local team to get even closer to the last place of MLS CUP qualifiers.
This ninth place in the ranking is currently owned by San Jose, but three teams are three points or less behind earthquakes. This match includes two sides in search of coherent performance to close the end of the regular season.
For Houston (7-11-8, 29 points), a victory on Saturday puts them into equality with San Jose (8-11-8, 32 points) in points, but the goal differential of earthquakes means a likely equality in San Jose with the Houston -9 differential.
However, the dynamo has been on a competitive sequence lately after losing five of the seven games played between the end of May and mid-July. Since the slowdown in form, Houston has three games in a row, each against clubs in front of them in the standings.
More recently, a 1-1 draw in Vancouver included the captain of the Artur club marking a dramatic goal on the first minute of the second half when the Brazilian struck a single laser at 25 meters.
“In the past two weeks, we have seen the personality and reactions which, I think, make me really optimistic about the next eight games and the future,” said head coach Ben Olsen.
San Jose is on a downward trend of his own points with five points in the last seven games. On Sunday, earthquakes welcomed the San Diego FC and fell 2-1, but the young Christmas midfielder Buck, who followed Bruce Arena in San Jose when the former head coach of the national team was hired nine months ago, made his second appearance since he missed 13 games.
In two minutes, the 20 -year -old man had an impact with his first assist for San Jose. Despite the defeat, Buck is confident in luck on his side to keep a place in the playoffs.
“I think we have a very good team,” said Buck. “The problem is to overcome the line, to keep the winning advance. It is unfortunate, but I know that we will keep the belief of playing the playoffs and winning our next games. With the quality we have, we should be able to do so.”
These two sides gathered on May 24 in a 3-3 dramatic draw where the Yo-Yo leads between the sides until Griffin Dorsey of Houston has marked a target of late downtime to steal a point in San Jose. Preston Judd scored twice in this competition for earthquakes.
– field level media
