Dynamo continue playoff push against Columbus Crew: What to watch for
(image via Houston Dynamo FC)
The Houston Dynamo return to Shell Energy Stadium tonight to welcome the Columbus Crew. The Dynamo are coming off a convincing 3-0 win on the road against Real Salt Lake Saturday night. Columbus beat Toronto FC 2-0 on Saturday night in their last match.
When: Wednesday, August 30 | 7:39 PM CT kickoff
Where: Shell Energy Stadium; Houston, Texas
TV/Stream: MLS Season Pass on Apple TV - Free
Radio: ESPN 97.5 FM (English), TUDN Deportes Houston 93.3 FM (Spanish)
Goals galore
Just a month or so ago, Dynamo fans were looking around wondering who would score goals for this team. Now the team looks to have found its rhythm in Ben Olsen’s system, scoring 11 goals in their last three games across all competitions. Aliyu Ibrahim played on the wing Saturday and looked to be very comfortable in that role. With Corey Baird finding his form as a striker and Nelson Quinones continuing his solid play this season, the Dynamo offense has come to life. “We’ve just been more efficient,” Olsen said on the increase in goals. “Each game we get looks, and we continue to get the right numbers in the box and have the right ideas. It’s just been efficient. We’ve got some guys that are seeing the goal right now. The goal seems big to some of these guys, particularly (FW) Corey (Baird). (MF) Héctor (Herrera) is chipping in, and (MF Adalberto) Coco (Carrasquilla) is giving us some production. It’s a combination of individuals, and then being confident and being very efficient in our chances.”
One more flurry
Tonight’s match is the second week in row that the Dynamo have played on a Wednesday night and will be their third match in eight days. They’ll play again Saturday in California and then get a two week international break. This season has had so many stops and starts, notably a month off for Leagues Cup. Saturday’s lineup showed the Dynamo can rotate and still put out an impressive perofrmance. They’ll need it coming off the international break as they’ll play midweek-weekend for the next three weeks after. “It's either feast or famine here,” Olsen said this week about the international break coming up. “We have the stretches off, and then we have Saturday-Wednesday-Saturday. We’ve navigated it in a great way, and we used a lot of players, which increases depth and increases buy-in from everybody that they are contributing to this recent success that we've had. So, that’s good. We have two more quick ones, and then we'll be able to exhale for a few days. But we’re not so concerned about that. We’ve reset for Columbus. We understand the quality that they bring, and this will be a very tough match up. They are one of the toughest teams that we've played in quite a while. So, we’re looking forward to that and being at home. We still don't have any luxury to try to step off the gas right now. We’re still in a position where you win one, you can really move up, or teams can pass you up very quickly if you're not sharp and you drop points.”
What the Crew do
What they do is score goals, lots of them. Columbus have scored 50 goals this season, tied for the most in Major League Soccer with St. Louis. They sold Lucas Zelarayan recently but immediately went out and brought Diego Rossi back to MLS to fill the need. Rossi scored his first goal for Columbus on Saturday and alongside Cucho Hernandez and Christian Ramirez, he makes up a highly dangerous front three for the Crew. The Dynamo defense has been a fortress at Shell Energy Stadium this season and they may well face their biggest challenge tonight. It should be a must-see matchup, for sure.
Availability Report
Houston Dynamo – Out: Ifunanyachi Achara (knee), Teenage Hadebe (leg), Tate Schmitt (knee)
Columbus Crew – Out: Will Sands (knee), Malte Amundsen (yellow card accumulation)
Predicted Lineup
