The Houston Dynamo seek to boost their fading playoff hopes on Saturday night when they visit a St. Louis City side in the thick of a front-office shakeup.
After a 2-1 home loss to San Jose last weekend, the 12th-place Dynamo (7-12-8, 29 points) begin the final August match day six points off the ninth and final Western Conference playoff spot with seven matches to play.
San Jose is one of the two teams six points ahead of Houston after last week’s result. But Dynamo manager Ben Olsen has been impressed by the emotional response from his group.
“It’s been a good week, a good spirit,” Olsen said Friday. “We were all disappointed, to say the least, about the San Jose game. But guys bounce back, they understand that we got some results and we’re still alive. And I think the week was a lot better energy than I thought (it would be).”
The Dynamo have also been a reasonably good away side this season, posting a 3-4-6 record on their travels. They’ve scored three or more goals three times as a visitor, while failing to do so at all in 14 home matches. And four of Ezequiel Ponce’s seven league goals have come on the road.
Meanwhile, St. Louis (5-16-6, 21 points) will play its first match since the dismissal of the club’s first sporting director Lutz Pfannenstiel earlier this week. The 2023 expansion side has lost seven of its last nine.
Striker Joao Klauss is one of several signings under Pfannenstiel who hasn’t quite lived up to expectations. But he’s still scored in two of his side’s last three games and will complete a second double-digit campaign in three seasons with his next goal.
As one of the roster’s pricier veterans, he may also see Pfannenstiel’s exit as a possible precursor for his own.
“I would say it’s (thrown) in an element of guys probably looking at their futures, their near futures, what … their careers look like moving forward,” interim manager David Critchley admitted. “But so far, a lot of the conversation that I’ve had with the guys is just what I expect for this weekend, what I expect of them to see on the field.”
–Field Level Media
