Window to make playoffs closing rapidly
Players, coach aware turnaround needed to make up ground
There’s good news and there’s bad news for the Dynamo.
The good? With 12 games remaining in the MLS regular season, the Dynamo will face most of the teams above them in the Western Conference standings.
The bad? The gap between the Dynamo and the final sixth seed has widened as the team struggles through a six-game league winless streak.
The streak could not have come at a worse time, although inconsistent officiating hasn’t helped the Dynamo dig their way out of their hole.
After jumping into the playoff picture early this summer, the Dynamo (7-10-6, 27 points) have slipped in the MLS standings, falling eight points behind the sixthplace team, Real Salt Lake (10-10-5, 35 points) — their opponent Saturday night at BBVA Compass Stadium.
“We need to win,” defender Andrew Wenger said. “We’re outside the playoff picture at the moment, and there’s so many games left. We need all the points we can get.”
The pressure is on
But it isn’t all bad.
Real Salt Lake have faced struggles as well, winning only one of their last five matches. And the 10th-place Dynamo haven’t been starved for goals, sporting a higher scoring differential (plus-5) than half of the teams ahead of them.
“Yes, there’s pressure right now,” Wenger said. “We haven’t won in several, we need to win. Can we deal with that? Absolutely. Will we deal with that? Absolutely.”
Those stakes are intensified at home for coach Wilmer Cabrera.
“It’s a final for us, if we want to qualify for the playoffs we have to win at home,” he said. “It’s going to be really important to be solid to win the three points on Saturday.
“We’ve been having some difficulties that we normally don’t have. Playing at home with 10 men hasn’t been normal for us. When we keep 11 players, we are very competitive. We can win, we can tie, we can lose, yes. But we’re always competitive.”
Those frustrations extend to players who are trying to focus on what they can control.
“As of late we have had some calls that haven’t gone our way, but that’s not an excuse,” forward Romell Quioto said. “We had a difficult streak, but every team goes through that. We are going to try to snap that streak on Saturday.”
Quioto is not alone in his optimism. Players took to the practice field Thursday joking and laughing as usual. When asked about their window of opportunity closing, they responded with a measured hopefulness.
Machado stays hopeful
“I think the team has been working the same way we did last year, and even better with the new players we added,” defender Adolfo Machado said. “Our mentality has always been the same, which is to be in the playoffs; we know it’s complicated but not impossible. We are still working, we are still hopeful, and we believe we can make it into the playoffs.”
Some players expected the momentum from their recent U.S. Open Cup semifinal win over Los Angeles FC to bolster those chances. But for Wenger, it might take a MLS win to spark a much-needed run.
“It’ll be a lot better once we get that first win and take it one at a time,” he said. “We know it’s within us.”