HOUSTON – For the second home game in a row, the Houston Dynamo held its opponent scoreless en route to a win.
On Saturday, Houston defended its home pitch against New York City FC, shutting down the Cityzens’ attack while getting a 1-0 win. With the victory, Houston has its first winning streak of the season.
Dynamo head coach Ben Olsen has spoken repeatedly about Houston winning home games. He’s stressed how much accomplishing that season goal — winning home games — can achieve another Dynamo goal, making the playoffs.
“I’m thrilled that we put on a performance that we did, and we’re able to get another win here at home for our fans,” Olsen said.
“We’ve talked a lot about making sure we protect this place. We know what that means. If you do a good job of winning home games here, it gives you a really good shot at being in the postseason. So, to get two home games, six points, and some shoutouts. That’s a big deal.”
The Dynamo are still a work in progress on both sides of the ball, and on Saturday, the defense shone brightly, much to Olsen’s delight. The Dynamo defense held New York to one shot on target and a paltry expected goal rate of 0.3.
“I think to allow one shot like that is pretty good,” Dynamo defender Daniel Steres told The Bayoucitian after the game. “We’ll take the shutout. It’s what we need to do, and I think that’s the type of team we can be where we’re tough to play against and keep zeros on the board.”
On the defensive back line, Olsen singled out Steres for his work as an emergency right back, and the two starting center backs, Ethan Barthlow and Teenage Hadebee. The Dynamo coach called Hadebee a rock on defense and said Saturday’s game was Barthlow’s best to date.
But overall, Olsen was pleased with everyone’s performance stating that the team will need that night in and night out.
“We’re not good enough to have one or two guys taking off a night, and we didn’t have that [tonight],” Olsen said.
The season is four games old, but Houston (2-2-0, 6 points) has gone from conceding five goals in the first two games to back-to-back shutouts at home. According to OptaJack, the last time Houston had back-to-back consecutive shutout wins in a season was in 2014. The team’s defensive progress hasn’t gone unnoticed by Olsen.
“From the day we got here to now, the defensive shape and the understanding of who we are and how we’re going to go about winning games is getting clearer, I think to everyone. And that’s a really good sign,” Olsen said.
Winning cures all that ails, and with back-to-back wins, the Dynamo’s spirits are riding high. After the game, music blasted from inside the locker room, celebrating a job accomplished at home.
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.