HOUSTON – New owner.
New general manager.
New head coach.
New striker.
Same results.
The Houston Dynamo took the pitch Sunday evening with a lot of promise from an active offseason, but there were more questions than answers regarding the club’s future by the final whistle.
A work in progress
Houston managed only two shots on target, and both went straight at Real Salt Lake keeper Zac MacMath. The closest Houston came to scoring came via el El Científico del Gol, Darwin Quintero, whose 82nd-minute strike from 28 yards CLANKED off the post.
“Look, it’s a work in progress. If you guys think that you are going to see the end product in the first week, I think we all misunderstand what getting team chemistry and building a team foundation is,” first-year head coach Paulo Nagamura said.
“And that’s exactly what I told the players—we are not going to look like a championship team in week one of the season.”
Nagamura wants the Dynamo to be a possession-style team that controls the tempo, which is a counter to how coaches from the past have wanted Houston to play — high pressing and counter-attack. Styles of that nature take time to implement, and Nagamura said there are things the team still needs to work on “to be more dangerous around the box.”
That dangerous aspect was not on the pitch Sunday. Like last season, the team started the game slow offensively, giving RSL an easier route to defend the Dynamo. In the second half, Houston played faster and had more control and possession, but no goals to show for it.
“That’s what we need to keep working on, and I think we have the players to do it,” Nagamura said. “We just need to better understand each other and the way that we want to play and that comes with time.”
Adam Lundkvist, now playing under his fourth coach in his Dynamo tenure, sees a bright light on how Nagamura wants the Dynamo to play.
“I think that could be very beneficial, especially in the summer when the heat gets here, to be able to control the pace of the game and make the opponent’s move and slide from side to side. It’ll be a tough job when you get here in the summer,” Lundkvist said.
“We are not fully there yet. We have been together for a month. There is still a lot of stuff to work on, but we are working every day. And you can see the little stuff that is falling into place, we have a long way to go, but we are working in training every day and eager to get better and get this team where it belongs.”
Dynamo defense a bright spot in season opener
Despite the lackluster performance on the offensive side, Nagamura was impressed with how his defense played. Nagamura pointed out how his side minimized everything for Real Salt Lake in the run of play.
“Most of their chances came from set-pieces or fouls or corners,” Nagamura said. “And what I saw, the positives we can take from this game defensively, we were very, very good.”
The defense was on Nagamura’s mind when he chose his starting eleven, which included Matías Vera and Darwin Ceren. The first-year head coach said he likes the solid defensive shape both midfielders give the team when on the pitch.
A new piece to the Dynamo’s defense this year is Steve Clark. Houston signed the veteran keeper in the offseason, and early on in his Dynamo tenure, Lundkvist can already see how Clark can help Houston’s defense.
“His game management and just how he talks to every one of us in the backline. He makes us feel calm,” Lundkvist said. “And I think that’s a very important thing as a goalkeeper that he reads the game very well. And he always keeps us level and always keeps us in good peace of mind.”
It’s only one game, with 33 still left to play. Nagamura and the Dynamo (1-0-0, 1 point) get a chance to assert that this season won’t be like the previous ones went they hit the road to take on Sporting Kansas City. A place and team Nagamura is all too familiar with.
Jesus Acevedo Jr. is the Editor-in-Chief of The Bayoucitian. He’s an award-winning bilingual journalist from Houston, TX. A graduate of the University of Houston, he has written for the Houston Chronicle, La Voz de Houston, MLSsoccer.com, and ProSoccerUSA.
Before becoming a journalist, Jesus spent his early 20s drumming his way across Houston with two bands — Shortcomings and InsertNameHere. The memories that Jesus made as a musician were the seeds that started the idea for the comedy, Houmans: The Series.
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