The MLS Cup Playoffs are back in Houston, enjoy the ride
The Houston Dynamo are once again a playoff team, hosting Real Salt Lake on Sunday night at Shell Energy Stadium in Game One of the Best-of-Three First Round Series. It’s absurd to think that it’s been six years since the team participated in the postseason. Six grueling years. With each year after that spectacular 2017 run sinking the club lower and lower.
To some extent, this season has some similarities to that of 2017. A new head coach took charge, and key additions arrived to strengthen the team. And much like that season, the expectations of 2023 were surpassed. Houston would finish in 4th place in the Western Conference, with 50 points, thanks to Alberth Elis, Erick Torres, and Mauro Manotas leading the charge. That team was so fun to watch, they kept every opponent on their toes and every fan on the edge of their seat. However, while the similarities between both seasons exist, there is just a different feeling this time around. A new mentality, a new era.
The Dynamo winning another MLS Cup is the goal, never say never. The difference now is that this club is building something that we haven’t seen before. A strong foundation that can create something sustainable. The strides that majority owner Ted Segal has taken to wake up the sleeping giant in the city of Houston has been extraordinary. It took a man from out of state that believed in Houston and its rich soccer history for it to believe in itself. But of course, the journey has not been perfect. Lessons have been learned the hard way.
There is a quote by Aldous Huxley: “Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.” That simplifies what we’ve seen in the last three seasons. Otherwise, signing Ben Olsen as the head coach would not have happened. Neither would the team lifting the club’s second US Open Cup and many other details that have led to this moment of exceeding the expectations for 2023. Don’t be angered at where the preseason predictions had the Dynamo finishing, be in awe of what the squad has showed us so far, and more importantly, the happiness that it has brought to a suffering fan base.
The playoffs are different, the atmosphere is unmatched. Buy your tickets, bring your kids, make memories and enjoy times like these. Personally, I am looking forward to seeing groups like the Surge, who haven’t yet experience a playoff match since their inception, to go nuts along with El Batallon and the rest of Hustletown. Let the party begin! Believe.
