The Houston Dynamo will look for their sixth home win of the season tomorrow night as they play host to the Revolution.\u00a0 With both teams having been eliminated from the playoffs, it\u2019s a little strange that this match will only be for pride- especially since the Dynamo and the Revolution met in two consecutive MLS Cup finals just three years ago.<\/p>\n
But both teams have changed since the MLS Cup match in 2007.\u00a0 The Revolution have had problems rebuilding their team into a playoff contender with the loss of Pat Noonan, Andy Dorman, Michael Parkhurst, Steve Ralston, and Clint Dempsey.\u00a0 Houston has also had problems rebuilding after they\u2019ve lost players like Dwayne DeRosario, Stuart Holden, Ricardo Clark, and Brian Mullan.<\/p>\n
So given that the playoffs are out of the question and that both these squads are lackluster since their MLS Cup days, this match doesn\u2019t matter all that much in the grand scheme of things.\u00a0 However, with just a few weeks remaining in the regular season, both teams will fight for pride.<\/p>\n
New England and Houston are almost in the same boat.\u00a0 For one, New England\u2019s injury list just keeps growing.\u00a0 This week Kevin Alston and Betu Linck were added to the list in the \u201cout\u201d category.\u00a0 They join Preston Burpo, Taylor Twellman, Zak Boggs, Nico Colaluca, and Cory Gibbs.\u00a0 Houston\u2019s injury list isn\u2019t as deep, but its contents are heavy.\u00a0 Brian Ching was added to the list this week due to a knee injury and it\u2019s expected that he may miss the remainder of the season.\u00a0 Ching is joined on the injury list by Colin Clark, Tally Hall, and Anthony Obodai.<\/p>\n
Houston enters the match having won 5 matches at home while New England has just won once on the road.\u00a0 At home, Houston has scored 22 goals while New England has only scored 9 while away.<\/p>\n
Defensively, both teams have been equally disappointing.\u00a0 New England has the worst defense in the league: 47 goals allowed this season.\u00a0 Houston isn\u2019t any better: 46 goals allowed this season.\u00a0 The veteran Houston goalkeeper Pat Onstad has a GAA of 1.75 while New England\u2019s Matt Reis has a GAA of 1.79.<\/p>\n
The Revolution have a chance to win tonight, especially since their form in their last 3 matches has been strong.\u00a0 However, the keys to tomorrow night\u2019s match will be to be disciplined, take the crowd out of the game, and control the middle.<\/p>\n
The Revs have proven they have the ability to control a match.\u00a0 The problem is they just haven\u2019t been able to get a victory out of it.\u00a0 The Revolution have struggled to close games as of late because of poor defensive discipline.\u00a0 This team can\u2019t afford anymore lapses.<\/p>\n
Brian Ching, the symbol of Houston\u2019s attack, is out.\u00a0 The crowd has seen the team allow 46 goals.\u00a0 The Revolution can put the dagger in the heart by silencing the crowd and exploiting Houston\u2019s weaknesses and absences.<\/p>\n
Neither of these two keys can be accomplished if New England does not control the midfield.\u00a0 Shalrie Joseph and Pat Phelan need to move the ball around and find open space.\u00a0 Getting the ball to the forwards is key: that\u2019s how you score goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Houston Dynamo will look for their sixth home win of the season tomorrow night as they play host to the Revolution.\u00a0 With both teams having been eliminated from the playoffs, it\u2019s a little strange that this match will only be for pride- especially since the Dynamo and the Revolution met in two consecutive MLS […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":826,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[9,14,3],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/perovicfeature.jpg?fit=490%2C225","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1253"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1258,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253\/revisions\/1258"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}