{"id":14137,"date":"2018-04-14T20:10:53","date_gmt":"2018-04-15T00:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonsoccer.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=14137"},"modified":"2018-04-14T20:11:42","modified_gmt":"2018-04-15T00:11:42","slug":"houston-dynamo-defensive-distraction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2018\/04\/14\/houston-dynamo-defensive-distraction\/","title":{"rendered":"The Houston Dynamo Defensive Distraction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Editorial &#8211; <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Houston Dynamo will travel to San Jose Earthquakes without the suspended DaMarcus Beasley. Beasley, Panamanian International Adolfo Machado, and Leonardo gave the Dynamo three-fourths of a solid backline. <\/span><\/p>\n<h1>The Houston Dynamo Defensive Distraction<\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Three-fourths isn\u2019t enough. Houston is leaking goals, having conceded six in four games. Teams are attacking the Dynamo flanks. New England Revolution, Houston\u2019s last opponent, spend 39% of their time playing the right side. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>Las Naranjas<\/em> were pressured by Vancouver Whitecaps FC 40% of the time on the right. Houston&#8217;s lack of a quality right back hinders them. Honduran International Alberth Elis getting two goals and three assists make him a mainstay in the offensive third.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Midfielder Andrew Winger, who plays high so Beasley can overlap, has scored one goal in four games. Designated Player Tomas Martinez has provided one assist for his only stat in his four-game debut. Houston is built to counter which can lead to a problem controlling games.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Dynamo should keep possession at their attacking half by link-up play to defeat San Jose. New York City FC gave their possession meaning in Northern California. NYCFC had scoring chances and contained the Quakes attack leading to a 2-1 comeback win. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">San Jose may counter quickly to their offense third. What\u2019s unique about them is their choice to string passes staying patient for easier scoring chances. The Quakes Designated Player Magnus Eriksson prefers this method.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Bay Area squad went after NYCFC&#8217;s left side during their match. Machado may occupy the left back position being more of an attacking threat. The 21-year-old Venezuelan Alejandro Fuenmayor may play at center back. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/lineupbuilder.com\/2014\/custom\/354x526.php?p=11&amp;a=40303&amp;t=Houston%20Dynamo%20Projected%20Line%20Up&amp;c=dc0000&amp;1=GK___388_174&amp;2=DLL_Machado__293_56&amp;3=DCL_Leonardo__327_138&amp;4=DCR_Fuenmayor__327_211&amp;5=DRR_Garcia__293_292&amp;6=DMC_Ceren__258_174&amp;7=MCRR_Alexander__218_226&amp;8=MCAL_Martinez__186_138&amp;9=WL_Wenger__116_64&amp;10=WR_Elis__116_284&amp;11=FCA_Manotas__80_174&amp;c2=ffffff&amp;c3=ffffff&amp;output=embed\" width=\"354\" height=\"526\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kevin Garcia could be playing at right back which is one-fourth\u00a0the defensive equation keeping Houston from progressing. Machado replaced Garcia at right back when Swiss International center back Philippe Senderos suffered a hamstring injury.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The disruption in Houston\u2019s defense will make the Dynamo\u2019s season a climb above the red line difficult. They lost 1-0 at Avaya Stadium last September. The South Texas squad can\u2019t ascend with the stigma of winning five away games in three years. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Alberth Elis may have to aid Garia in marking Eriksson. Quakes center back Harold Cummings will be suspended and may give Houston a crack in the San Jose\u2019s questionable defense.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s common knowledge a tie is usually an acceptable result on the road in MLS. The Dynamo biggest disappointment wouldn\u2019t be a narrow loss. A lack of leadership with no effort at the end of 90 minutes will forecast the current state of the Dynamo.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a id=\"p_2sU-wQQzZQnDGPr5vgUA\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/933792890\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'p_2sU-wQQzZQnDGPr5vgUA',sig:'vcRqApf-pFZj726yRgH851uOBhfz97DXNW7SMZsoUxM=',w:'594px',h:'416px',items:'933792890',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Editorial &#8211; The Houston Dynamo will travel to San Jose Earthquakes without the suspended DaMarcus Beasley. Beasley, Panamanian International Adolfo Machado, and Leonardo gave the Dynamo three-fourths of a solid backline. The Houston Dynamo Defensive Distraction Three-fourths isn\u2019t enough. Houston is leaking goals, having conceded six in four games. Teams are attacking the Dynamo flanks. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1668,"featured_media":14166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[1890,988,491,570,234,1891,292,1895,1894,95,1892,37,1893,804],"class_list":["post-14137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dynamo","tag-adoflo-machado","tag-alberth-elis","tag-andrew-wenger","tag-damarcus-beasley","tag-houston-dynamo","tag-kevin-garcia","tag-leonardo","tag-magus-eriksson","tag-new-england","tag-new-york-city-fc","tag-philippe-senderos","tag-san-jose-earthquakes","tag-tomas-martinez","tag-vancouver-whitecaps-fc"],"modified_by":"Matt Pollard","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1668"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}