Level Set 9, Houston Dynamo FC: Slow and Steady Wins the Race, at Least Until It Loses It

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What follows is a brief history of Houston Dynamo FC, plus more brief notes on whatever long-term tendencies they have. Their 2025 season gets weighed on both sides of that and the whole thing ends with where I see things with them in this very specific moment in time - i.e., before First Kick 2026. You should count on things happening between here and there.

The post ends with a scale I came up with to measure the long-term success of every team in Major League Soccer. It does some things well (e.g., count trophies/achievements), other things less well (capture recent trends). It's called the Joint Points Scale and you can find a link that explains what it does. I was really stoned when I came up with the scale and wrote the post. Caveat lector. With that...

Thumbnail History
Houston Dynamo FC, who came in as the Houston Dynamo, weren’t MLS’s first second-wave expansion team (i.e., the ones that came after the 2001 contraction); calling them one doesn’t quite tally either because and they never had to go through the proper expansion team exercise of building from nothing. Moreover, they got stupid fucking lucky in that the team they received had just hoisted the Supporters’ Shield the season prior in San Jose. The San Jose Earthquakes franchise had caught fire in the years before their ownership group yanked out their roots and moved them to the sweatiest bit of Texas. A couple players didn’t make the trip – e.g., defenders Danny Califf and long-time forward Ronald Cerritos – but they came with a handful of the most famous names in Houston Dynamo history – e.g., Dwayne De Rosario, Brian Ching, Eddie Robinson, Pat Onstad, a human assist machine they didn't even know they had named Brad Davis, etc. etc. Between s ready-made roster and employing Dominic Kinnear, one of the best head coaches of the 2000s, they had the horses to kick off franchise history with back-to-back MLS Cups in 2006 and 2007. Minor stumbles aside, the Dynamo wouldn’t slip far out of contending over their first seven or eight seasons in the league. That’s a bit of trip, honestly, when you review the rosters that battled to losses in the 2011 and 2012 MLS Cups (just…how did that team get there in an 18-/19-team MLS?), but it also shows how far a good foundation (and a succession of stingy defenses) can carry a team. My personal highlights from the Dynamo’s glory years included the fingernail-rending battles they played in against Mexico’s CF Pachuca in the CONCACAF Champions’ Cup/League over the 2008 and 2009 seasons, games that marked the first occasion I genuinely believed MLS teams would eventually compete with Liga MX’s best. Sadly, their best days dried up and, aside from the odd hurrah here (U.S. Open Cup winners in 2018!), and the strong run outta nowhere there (2017 playoff semifinalists), Houston idled through the late 2010s and into the early 2020s, while the rest of MLS sprinted ahead. The question of whether they can get back up again remains open. For all the good decisions they made going into 2023 – due to the way he fits the Dynamo’s classic controlled(/stingy) playing model, pulling Ben Olsen, a good fit for the Dynamo’s classic controlled(/stingy) playing model, out of early retirement made all kinds of sense and adding Mexican legend, Hector Herrera, gave them someone to build around, if only for a few seasons – Houston still hasn’t found the attacking ace they need to make all that thuddingly responsible build-up play payoff. Closer than they have been, in other words, but still a player or two short of dangerous. Paging MLS [#.0]’s version of Ching or DeRo…

Getting Reacquainted with Houston Dynamo FC, MLS's Stubborn Workhorses

It got 'em there. Four times, in fact.

Thumbnail History
Houston Dynamo FC, then just the Houston Dynamo, weren’t MLS’s first second-wave expansion team (i.e., the ones that came after the 2001 contraction); calling them one doesn’t quite tally either because and they never had to go through the proper expansion team exercise of building from nothing. Moreover, they got stupid fucking lucky in that the team they received had just hoisted the Supporters’ Shield the season prior in San Jose.

As noted in the previous chapter in this series, the San Jose Earthquakes franchise had caught fire in the years before their ownership group yanked out their roots and moved them to sweaty Texas. A couple players didn’t make the trip – e.g., defenders Danny Califf and long-time forward Ronald Cerritos – but they came with a handful of the most famous names in Houston Dynamo history – e.g., Dwayne DeRosario, Brian Ching, Eddie Robinson, Pat Onstad, (my man) Brad Davis, etc. etc. Between that ready-made roster and employing Dominic Kinnear, one of the best head coaches of the 2000s, they had the horses to kick off franchise history with back-to-back MLS Cups in 2006 and 2007. Some minor stumbles aside, the Dynamo wouldn’t slip far out of contending over their first seven or eight seasons in the league. That’s a bit of trip, honestly, when you review the rosters that battled to losses in the 2011 and 2012 MLS Cups (just…how did that team get there in an 18-/19-team MLS?), but it also shows how far a good foundation (and a succession of stingy defenses) can carry a team. My personal highlights from the Dynamo’s glory years included the fingernail-rending battles they played in against Mexico’s CF Pachuca in the CONCACAF Champions’ Cup/League over the 2008 and 2009 seasons; those games marked the first occasion I genuinely believed MLS teams would eventually compete with Liga MX’s best, a hard goddamn sell in those days. Still, their best days dried up and, aside from the odd hurrah here (U.S. Open Cup winners in 2018!), and the strong run outta nowhere there (2017 playoff semifinalists), Houston idled through the late 2010s and early 2020s while the rest of MLS sprinted ahead. A jarring fall, given their history, and flashes of recovery notwithstanding, the question of whether they can get back up again remains open. For all the good decisions they made going into 2023 – due to the way he fits the Dynamo’s classic controlled(/stingy) playing model, pulling Ben Olsen out of early retirement made all kinds of sense and Mexican legend, Hector Herrera, gave them someone to build around, if only for (literally) two seasons – Houston still hasn’t found the attacking ace they need to make all that thuddingly responsible build-up play payoff. Closer than they have been, in other words, but still a player or two short of dangerous. Paging MLS [#.0]’s version of Ching or DeRo…

Total Joy Points: 18

Portland Timbers 2-2 Houston Dynamo FC: A Word Search

At least they got a poem out of theirs...

The Portland Timbers…what is the verb here? Held on? Stumbled? Rallied? What verb best describes what the Timbers did or failed to do last night in their 2-2 draw against Houston Dynamo FC?

Portland crafted two gilded chances to take all three points late – and crafted matters here because neither Evander’s looping shot from range nor Nathan Fogaca’s second glorious header of the night came easy (relive the agony at the end of the full highlights) – but Houston also had a good goal rightly called back for offside just four or five minutes earlier. Kamal Miller even had a second bite after Fogaca’s header. All that after the 80th minute. Chances abounded at the end, but none became the goal to decide it.

Happily (because I hate cliches), this was no tale of two halves. The game pitted Houston’s steady, if imperfect game-plan against Portland’s opportunism. That some how translated into a freewheeling, swinging arms and legs affair – and I was delighted to have it – and read as two teams taking part in a game they sincerely believed they could win. Personally, I find that equal parts satisfying and disturbing*, but the one true thing I know: the points keep slipping out of the Timbers’ hands – and, ye GODS, how the Timbers needed two more points from this one – and 2024 has left bloody stubs where my fingernails used to be.

* Here’s why: I’d argue the way Houston came out to start the game makes a pretty strong case that Ben Olsen approached Portland as a team his could break. Sebastian Kowalczyk’s early opener supported the theory – and the fact this guy came within an offside flag of scoring a brace speaks to the chaos ball on the pitch. Fast, loose and open as the game got, it never achieved true Wild-West shoot-out status. Houston’s total number of shots comes close to reflecting the number of times they put a good attack together. As for Portland…was this even a moral victory?

Getting Reacquainted with Houston Dynamo FC, MLS's Lost Nomads

What a dump. (IYKYK)

[Standing Disclaimer: While I have watched…just a stupid amount of MLS over the years, I don’t watch the vast majority of games, never mind all of them. As such, it’s fair to take anything below that isn’t a hard number or a physical trophy as an impression, a couple steps removed.]

Thumbnail History

Think of Houston Dynamo FC as the expansion team that wasn’t. They arrived in Houston in 2006 as the one and only team in MLS history to be relocated (right?) and they got stupid fucking lucky in that the team they received had just hoisted the Supporters’ Shield the season prior in San Jose. A couple players didn’t make the trip – e.g., defenders Danny Califf and Troy Dayak, as well as long-time forward Ronald Cerritos – but they came with a handful of the most famous names in Houston Dynamo history (all amply represented in the 10 Players to Know section below) and added at least one famous face, aka, midfielder and future (fragile) USMNT bubble-player, Stuart Holden. Blessed with a strong ready-made roster and one of the 2000’s best head coaches in Dominic Kinnear, the Dynamo kicked off franchise history by winning back-to-back MLS Cups in 2006 and 2007. When they finished 2nd and 3rd overall, respectively, over the next two seasons, Houston threatened to become regular contenders: two more trips to MLS Cup – in 2011 and 2012 – put a couple more teeth into the menace (and yet, if you look at the starting XI for both of those games (see links above), you’ll wonder how it happened). They had to console themselves with the U.S. Open Cup in 2013, but the future still looked bright…despite the second ninth-place finish in as many seasons. Then, out of somewhere close to nowhere, the wheels came off and caught fire: no matter how far the league lowered the bar, Houston would make the MLS playoffs just once over the next nine seasons – and even then, they squeaked in at 10th overall (2017). The end of that long walk through the wilds saw them end three straight regular seasons at 25th overall, the playoff line almost too far away to see and the Wooden Spoon whistling through the air close behind (fortunately, they had three of MLS’s historically (or lately-)worst teams running interference in each of those seasons). After at least a couple rebuilds, a series of bad calls on designated players, and no small amount of suffering among the fanbase, Houston Dynamo FC finally returned to the playoffs due to finally getting a big DP call right and pulling the right head coach (Benny Olsen!) out of early retirement.

Best Season(s)

Easy-peasy: the 2006 and 2007 MLS Cup seasons. Those early Dynamo teams weren’t necessarily elegant, but they were solid, well-coached and they had some of the best game-winners of their era pulling on an orange jersey.

Houston Dynamo FC 0-0 Portland Timbers: A Lotta Nope & Homework for Gio

This, only even more dandy.

Wow. That one just kind of sat there, didn’t it? A couple things happened now and again to make you think the game might open up, or at least kick out of neutral. Nope.

Houston Dynamo FC hosted yesterday’s goal-less draw versus the Portland Timbers and, yeah, the whole thing felt the same as two dudes squaring off for a fight, both of them announcing loudly “I don’t throw the first punch, bro.” At most, you can think of moments like Josecarlos Van Rankin’s no-look near-assist to Darwin Quintero as one of those dudes getting shoved and, say, falling backwards over a garbage can. He gets up, none the worse for the wear but some wet spots on the seat of his pants, while his wiser friend (Aljaz Ivacic) helps him up and away from the scene, without further embarrassment or potential pain, announcing over this shoulder, “let it go, man. He's not worth it.”

And I think that’s all I can get out of that metaphor.

The Timbers handed Houston at least one more breakthrough - courtesy of Quintero and Fafa Picault combining to break a high offside trap - but Ivacic bailed out Portland again. The Timbers’ new No. 1 pulled their asses out of the fire again in the 2nd half - and all those saves are lovingly documented in the highlights (which helped recall who did what on the morning after) - so you kept waiting for the rest of the team to do something with the pocket money he gave them. To their credit, Portland created their best chances during spells of attacking pressure, periods when they’d seemed to make the conscious, collective decision to get players forward to see if they can’t buy the go-ahead goal. Cristhian Paredes fired the best shot I can remember - and from a good if crowded spot - and I noted some better-than-half chances for each of Bill Tuiloma, Yimmi Chara, Marvin Loria, and a largely aimless Jaroslaw Niezgoda (hold that thought), but whether by lunging (Bill), or kicking more dirty that clean. Nope.

Both teams subbed in players of interest over the second half - for Houston, Corey Baird for Tyler Pasher (who let Portland’s Claudio Bravo catch up to his best moment), Zeca for Griffin Dorsey, and Thorleifur (is Thor a nickname?) Ulfarsson for a largely aimless Sebastian Ferreira; for Portland Dairon Asprilla for Niezgoda, David Ayala for…Paredes, Loria for Santiago Moreno…good Lord, why did I start this section, then, later Eryk Williamson for Sebastian Blanco - and, again, nearly all those changes made you hope ‘n’ wonder that each move might get the same unstuck. Nope.

When Houston’s Teenage Hadebe got chucked for his second yellow at the 75th minute, I couldn’t have been alone in thinking that, surely, this momentous decision will finally deliver the moment this game has waited on for…75 minutes. Yeah, no, didn’t happen.