The Los Angeles Galaxy travel east to take on the Houston Dynamo in a Saturday night Western Conference matchup.
The last three games between the two teams have been won by the visitors, and the Galaxy (0-2-3, 3 points) are on a two-game winning streak in Houston. In fact, out of their last eight visits, LA has only lost twice with four wins and two draws.
The Galaxy will need that road success to continue as they pursue their first win of the 2023 season. They dropped their last match 2-1 to the visiting Seattle Sounders last Saturday despite controlling the game, outshooting Seattle by a wide margin (8-3).
One thing that could very much help the Galaxy enter the win column is the return of star forward Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez, who has yet to play this season due to a hamstring injury.
“He’s ready to go to Houston,” said LA head coach Greg Vanney midweek. “Now it’s just building up his match minutes, 11 (on) 11, covering territory, repetition. Playing for five minutes is different than playing for 90 minutes, so it’s just doing some of that. But he looks sharp, looks good.”
Without Chicharito, the Galaxy have struggled to score with only three players tallying this season and each of them — Dejan Joveljic, Kelvin Leerdam and Jalen Neal, who scored his first MLS goal in the game versus Seattle — only netting one goal apiece.
The Dynamo (2-3-0, 6 points) lost on the road to the San Jose Earthquakes 2-1 after giving up two penalty-kick goals to Cristian Espinoza.
“In the second half, we got a little undisciplined there during a 15-minute span where we were going for the win,” said Dynamo head coach Ben Olsen. “We had good numbers up in certain transition moments but didn’t have the quality and we exposed ourselves way too much for that stretch, and that’s where their PK comes from.”
Forward Amine Bassi netted a penalty goal in his third straight match for Houston. If he does that against LA, he will be the first player in league history to score off a penalty kick in four straight matches.
–Field Level Media
