It was easy to forget in the light of its shock playoff defeat to New York that the Houston Dynamo’s season is not yet over. The team still has to play its outstanding Concacaf Champions League group game at home to Salvadoran club Luis Angel Firpo on November 26, a game it must win to qualify for spring’s knockout stages.
“Hopefully we can bounce back and take our frustrations out in that game,” said forward Brian Ching said. Or, as Bernardo Fallas writes, “the match might just provide the Dynamo with a chance to go into the offseason with some redemption under their belts, well-deserved for a team on its way to setting a record for most competitive games played in a season.”
A win would also mean that Houston ends up as the only MLS team to register any kind of success in this year’s competition. New England and Chivas USA both failed to qualify for the group stages, while D.C. United’s group campaign was an unmitigated disaster, with the club taking just a single point from a possible 18.
Dynamo President Oliver Luck said the game “takes on even more importance now because of the psychological impact of ending the season on a high note. I think our guys will be focused on that.” Luck also hinted at changes in the playing staff over the winter. “We have a great core of players,” he said, “but this league, and I mean this sincerely, the quality is getting better and better. So we’ll sit with [coach] Dominic [Kinnear] and decide what moves, if any, we want to make to make the team stronger.”