Surging Austin FC will look to build on their best run of success this season when they host rival Houston Dynamo FC on Saturday in a Copa Tejas match.
Austin was among the dozen MLS teams that did not compete in the Leagues Cup against Liga MX squads, which means the Verde have not played in two weeks. The Dynamo participated in the Leagues Cup, but lost 2-1 to Pachuca on Wednesday at home to finish with no points in their three matches.
The Verde (9-8-6, 33 points) enter the weekend in seventh place in the Western Conference and riding high after a 4-2 road win over D.C. United on July 26. Myrto Uzuni, Owen Wolff, Osman Bukari and Robert Taylor had Austin’s goals in the victory, with Uzuni and Wolff finding the net for the second consecutive match.
The Verde were 4-1-1 in their six MLS matches in June and July.
Austin’s four goals against D.C. United were its most in a match this season. The Verde’s 21 goals in 23 games are still the fewest in the league (D.C. United is next with 22 in 25 matches).
“The more you score, the more you get the confidence,” Bukari said. “And, the more the teams win, the more you get the confidence. So I think this is the time everybody’s confidence will be high. Houston and Dallas [with whom the Verde clash at home on Aug. 16] are important games for us. We have to keep on playing and believing in ourselves and just doing whatever we have to do to be in the playoff.”
Austin has 11 league games remaining on its schedule. Nine of those are against teams with a worse record than Austin and eight versus teams outside the playoff picture entirely.
Not only are the Dynamo (7-11-6, 27 points) mired in 11th place in the West, they’re 0-2-1 in their past three MLS matches and winless in their last six outings across all competitions. Their most recent league contest produced a 1-1 draw at home versus Philadelphia in which Jack McGlynn scored Houston’s only goal with a penalty kick 10 minutes into first-half stoppage time.
Ezequiel Ponce leads Houston with seven goals on the season. Dynamo coach Ben Olsen said his team is a “little bit of a fragile group at the moment.”
“This is a group of players who don’t play with each other much,” he said. “I’m mixing things up, so I take some blame for that in that they are not always necessarily set up to succeed when you are trying to win a game. But you also have an eye on the future. (You look) at the past 10 games, that is where we are at now.
“Now it is about the last 10 games and seeing what we can do to get into the postseason. That has been our goal.”
–Field Level Media
