This is the 14th in a series of 20 short columns focused on the things I'm thinking about as we approach the 20th season of Major League Soccer. I'm going to dig into mostly non-obvious questions here – the tertiary stuff that can become bigger over time – rather than the giant storylines (e.g., How do the Red Bulls replace Henry? What if Ozzie's injury lingers? Is this THE year for TFC?).
You can find previous installments in my story archive HERE. For this latest entry, we turn to Bayou City...
Last year was a weird year for the Houston Dynamo. Not just because they didn't make the playoffs, not just because it marked the end of the Dom Kinnear era, not just because the previously frugal franchise spent big on reinforcements from front to back.
It was weird because the Dynamo were both slow and soft in defense. You could just jam it down their throat, or – on the occasions that didn't work – force them to scramble. And then they were meat.
Look at this:
That's a special play from the Revs, but for the longest time the Dynamo's defense specialized in preventing you from making special plays. This was a team that, for a decade, almost never got posterized.
The fact that they did so often in 2014 led to the wholesale offseason changes that we've seen, and the early returns are pretty promising. Nobody here is jumping to conclusions based only upon preseason games – I will straight up say that I don't think Houston's making the playoffs – but it's not going to be easy to pick them apart in 2015.
So where on the field will they be harder to break down? Try right in the middle, now that Luis Garrido will have a full season and La Liga vet Raul Rodriguez is conducting the back line. That combo should work, defensively.
The problem might come when they go in the other direction:
Player |
Passing Accuracy |
Passing Accuracy Own Half |
Alonso, Osvaldo |
91.14 |
94.67 |
Garrido, Luis |
86.51 |
90.56 |
What made Seattle so good last year wasn't just the Clint Dempsey/Obafemi Martins combo, it was how quickly (and accurately) Alonso converted deep, central recoveries into transition opportunities. Houston needs to copy that model since they have strikers like Will Bruin, Giles Barnes and (eventually) Cubo Torres, all of whom are better on the run than in possession.
Garrido is tremendous, and there's a good reason why the Dynamo became a better defensive team once he signed. He's a facsimilie of Alonso on that side of the ball, and now needs to become the Honey Badger in attack as well.
It's always dangerous to take raw passing stats as gospel. In this case, though, they line up with the eye test: Garrido can be better. For the sake of Houston's playoff chances, he needs to be.
