Most teams have a packed preseason to-do list.
There's certainly a lot of scurrying about in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Toronto, where players are adjusting to the ways and means of new managers, learning new systems and deciphering what, exactly, the new men in charge expect.
Dallas and Kansas City are learning how to play without their central scoring threats from a year ago. Chivas USA is introducing some new faces into the fold, fellows who can add some depth and, therefore, reinforce the team's vulnerable spot.
They may as well be wearing name tags around Real Salt Lake, where players have moved in and out like fashion fads since Jason Kreis took over. So, lots of familiarizing to do there.
San Jose? Well, they're starting from scratch, sorting out pretty much everything, right down to who selects locker room tunes. (Never underestimate the significance of that particular activity in establishing a side's leadership hierarchy.)
Even D.C. United, a typically steady ship, is in the midst of a meaningful preseason. Tom Soehn has three new faces at important positions and a couple of others stepping into critical team roles.
Point is, most teams have a lot of things to accomplish in preseason. Even now, there's ample work ahead as March marches forward, with MLS league games set to begin in about three weeks.
Well, all that's true around most MLS clubs, with one big exception.
Houston Dynamo? Not so much.
The contrast in preseason approach really is obvious. In south Texas, manager Dominic Kinnear and Co. just lay out the cones, pass out the pullovers and start playing.
Dynamo are one of four teams playing and training this week just outside San Antonio. And while the other clubs have significant adjusting, tinkering, pondering and experimenting, the league champs didn't seem to miss a single beat.
It's evident in everything around Kinnear's preseason training. The players, trainers, managers, etc. just look comfortable, like they took a long weekend off after that November match at RFK -- which ended, of course, with more YouTube moments of giddy players lifting a really big trophy -- and then got right back to business.
Houston faced Toronto on Wednesday night in the first of six matches over five days at the Texas Pro Soccer Festival. Right away it was apparent the teams were in different places, preseason prep-wise. The Toronto gang, with a new manager steering the ship and Mo Johnston standing quietly by, chatting up visitors amiably before kickoff instead of handing out last-minute instructions, had several new faces in the lineup. Two of the starting 11 were trialists, including former Ajax project Kiki Musampa, who once was in the Dutch national team picture and is auditioning for a TFC central midfield spot.
A couple of other young fellows were getting their chance in the lineup, too.
Meanwhile, Houston arranged a lineup that could compete today for a third consecutive MLS Cup. Most of the regulars were there, minus Dwayne De Rosario and Brian Mullan, who are nursing minor injuries.
Two midfielders missing? No matter. How about a linking line of Corey Ashe, Ricardo Clark, Richard Mulrooney and Brad Davis.
How's this for a major preseason objective? Houston is looking at Ashe, a longtime left-sided fellow, going back to his days with the U.S. under-17s, as a right-sided option. As experiments go, that's not exactly Pavlov and his dogs in the classical conditioning lab.
(Ashe didn't look bad at all, even on a narrow field, one that won't suit guys like Ashe, who are at their best in space.)
If you ask Kinnear, he'll tell you that he still has some things on his worry list. For instance, he'd love to have Stuart Holden and Patrick Ianni in camp. They're away with the Olympic team.
But he'll get no sympathy from new TFC coach John Carver. He's got five guys prepping with Olympic sides (two for Peter Nowak's U.S. team and three for the Canadians).
Predictably, Houston had control before the break Wednesday as, roughly speaking, both team's starters faced off. And it wasn't just the 4-1 lead that Houston assumed. Houston's passing, possession and overall organization were clearly better.
The four MLS teams' approaches to the Texas Pro Soccer Festival -- organized by the San Antonio Metropolitan Youth Soccer Institute, a non-profit that builds fields in the area -- is instructional, as well.
Chivas USA and D.C. United, concerned about a 62-yard wide field, got together on Wednesday morning on the wider training grounds for an informal friendly with their starters. United manager Tom Soehn, seeing a match in the CONCACAF Champions' Cup just days away, thought his side needed competitive prep work on a wider pitch.
Houston has the same schedule, with a Champions' Cup match this Wednesday as well. But Kinnear was comfortable playing on the smaller surface. He simply adjusted his side's thinking for the evening, making the night's top aim to compete hard and match TFC's intensity on the cramped field.
Oh, Houston does have some decisions to make. Bobby Boswell is challenging for the spot vacated by Ryan Cochrane, who is now in San Jose. Boswell is competing with Ianni and Stephen Wondolowski for the spot alongside steady Eddie Robinson. FYI: Houston's starting back line Wednesday was Wondolowski, Robinson, Craig Waibel and Wade Barrett. Outside of the Wondolowski (brother of Houston striker Chris Wondolowski), does that look familiar?
Boswell looks pretty comfortable already, hoping for a return to that 2006 MLS Defender of the Year form. But Houston has always been able to expeditiously and seamlessly fold players into the mix. Newcomers in 2007 like Richard Mulrooney, Nate Jaqua and Joseph Ngwenya were playing like veterans in the system in no time.
Speaking of Ngwenya and Jaqua, Houston does have to identify a new partner for Brian Ching at striker. It may be Franco Caraccio, who has yet to get his paperwork finalized.
But mostly, here's how well Kinnear's club is set compared to almost everyone else in March. His top aim for Wednesday night: "We need good matches, too," he said. "But what we really wanted to do was just to get some more fitness and come out healthy."
Thirteen other clubs around MLS are surely envious.
Steve Davis is a freelance writer who has covered Major League Soccer since its inception. Steve can be reached at BigTexSoccer@yahoo.com. The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author's, and not necessarily those of Major League Soccer or MLSnet.com.
