The Houston Dynamo have gone through a significant overhaul on their roster this offseason and have extended opportunities to several trialists. Four of them will get one final chance to shine when the club travels to Corpus Christi for its match with FC Dallas on Saturday at 2 p.m. The match will be streamed live at HoustonDynamo.com.
For forwards Steven Morrissey and Francois Swaby and midfielders Lester Peltier and JeVaughn Watson (above), it will be the last chance to impress Dynamo coaches, with Saturday marking the end of their trials with the club.
“Tomorrow is the last game for us to show the coach we’re ready to play for Houston,” said Trinidad & Tobago native Peltier on Friday. “From the start of the game, I am going to go aggressive and try and possess the ball, play football like Houston and play like we did in training all week.”
While the match ends the trials of Swaby, Morrissey, Peltier, and Watson, the Dynamo will get their first look at Jamaican defender Jermaine Taylor and midfielder Richard Edwards. Taylor joined the team on Thursday, and Edwards’ first training was on Friday. It will be a quick turnaround, but both players will get an immediate chance to show their ability in a match.
Edwards admits he has not had much training time with Houston before Saturday’s game but said he plans to, “just play football like I do everywhere else and come in and get myself acquainted with the team.”
As the match is the first of the preseason against another MLS team, the level of competition will increase from the previous scrimmages against the Dynamo Academy U-18 team and Houston Baptist University.
“In Trinidad, we play a lot of possession football, but here the game is actually faster,” Peltier said as to what he expects to see from an MLS opponent like FC Dallas. “I played against D.C. United last year, so I’ve an idea of how [the league] plays, and I am going to go out and play fast and move and try and impress.”
Darrell Lovell covers the Houston Dynamo for MLSsoccer.com. Follow him on twitter at @Dynamoexaminer.
