Portland Timbers vs. Houston Dynamo FC: Keys to Sunday Night Soccer

Matchday 6 brings us all to Portland for Sunday Night Soccer presented by Continental Tire, as the Timbers – with their new No. 10, old No. 6 and ever-present, always loud fanbase – host the retooling Houston Dynamo (7 pm ET | MLS Season Pass, Apple TV+).

Games at Providence Park have a look and feel all their own; it’s one of the signature MLS venues. You can feel it through the screen when those fans really start buzzing.

And the visitors bring a style all their own: ball-dominant in a way that no one else in the league quite manages. They’ve become one of my favorites to watch for that reason, though this year’s been a tough, tough start.

Portland Timbers

• David Da Costa was brought in to run the show. He’s climbed into the top 15 in the league in chances created and the top 10 in expected assists. So far, so good for the new No. 10.
• Diego Chara has Father Time in a death grip and isn’t letting the old man go. It’s almost impossible to believe this guy’s a week shy of his 39th birthday, because he’s still elite at covering ground and winning the ball, and remains brilliant at applying immediate pressure to blow up opposing counter opportunities.
• The enigma in the middle of Portland’s backline is Kamal Miller. Sometimes he looks like one of the best front-foot, ball-playing center backs in the league, capable of putting his entire team into advantageous spots. Other times, he’s a rolling disaster whose late reads invite disaster. Hopefully the Good version of Kamal shows up this weekend.

Houston Dynamo FC

• Just 7g/1a in 1,600 minutes across all competitions for Ezequiel Ponce since his arrival last summer. Just 1g/1a in 450 minutes this year, and some very concerning underlying numbers. Houston need their No. 9 to create pressure with his off-ball movement, but he doesn’t right now.
• Jack McGlynn makes a lot of the hardest things in the game – shifting defenders with your eyes; receiving in traffic and not even getting touched because you’ve fooled folks with your body shape; dinging 60-yard switches onto the foot of a winger – look easy. Now he needs to stop making some of the easy, effort-based things (tracking runners, closing space) look so hard.
• I still can’t understand how Femi Awodesu went undrafted two years ago – I had him as a top-10 pick. And now he’s playing like one, with some very solid across-the-board defensive numbers as a full-time starter. The next step is occasionally breaking lines with his passing, as so far he’s playing it safe back there.

They were excellent on the road last week at Colorado in a 3-0 win, but still: after this one, they’re facing four of five on the road. You do not want to go into a stretch like that having just dropped home points against a team you can out-talent at something like eight of 11 positions.

The other aspect of this is that Portland are starting to build some momentum, posting a 2W-1L-1D record since that opening day de-pantsing by the Whitecaps. Da Costa has started to not just fit, but do a lot of the No. 10 things that elevate the play of the guys around him, and some important rotation-related things are being figured out.

What I’m saying is that home points are at stake, and momentum is at stake. But bigger than that, I think some vibes are at stake. Timbers fandom was on the ledge after first kick; they are back in the fold – at least somewhat – now. The players themselves, too, look bought in (young David Ayala being particularly notable in that regard) in ways they maybe weren’t a month ago.

A win keeps building on that. Vibes matter, and taking good ones into that road swing matters a lot.

One of the quirks of the MLS schedule is that the Primary Transfer Window is disproportionately long – as in, “is still open nearly two months after the season has started”-level long, which is really quite something.

And because of that, there can be something of a feeling of unreality to the beginning of any year. “Oh, things haven’t really started yet because we haven’t even built our roster just yet. Once that happens, the season really begins.”

That, I’m afraid, is where the Dynamo live right now. We’ve been waiting a long time – nearly six months! – for them to sign a DP No. 10. They have reportedly signed one in Czech international Ondřej Lingr, but we'll have to wait a little longer for his paperwork to finish before we see him on the field. It still doesn’t quite feel like their season has started. Not for real, anyway.

It’s been a source of frustration to the fans (and to some neutral analysts, hint hint) that it’s taken this long. And I hope that when Lingr hits the ground in the coming weeks, he hits the ground running.

In the meantime, this team’s just got to figure out a way to collect points because the season has actually started, for real. And, for real, they are winless through five. While that’s not death, it’s at the least a decent level of infirmity.

Portland Timbers: Finn Surman… World Cup center back?!?

I vividly remember a broadcast call with head coach Phil Neville last October ahead of a Cascadia Cup clash against the Seattle Sounders. Neville was discussing his lineup decisions and mentioned Finn Surman was set to start against the Timbers' archrivals. Nevile was effusive about the young New Zealander’s potential.

My first thought was, “Uhhhhhh … Finn who?” At the time, Surman hadn’t played a single MLS minute. Five games into the 2025 season, the 21-year-old has become a lineup fixture in Portland, starting all five matches for the club.

Next summer, there’s a good chance Surman will be playing in the World Cup with New Zealand. The All Whites qualified for 2026 during the international break, claiming the lone automatic spot out of Oceania. Surman stuck around Portland, as agreed upon by the club and national team, while his professional career continues to take hold in North America.

Keep a close eye on the rising defensive star on Sunday.

Houston: Pressure on Ponce … but Dynamo need scoring committee

Look, I get it. Record signings and Designated Players bear the brunt of the goalscoring responsibility. C'est la vie, Ezequiel Ponce.

So yeah, Ponce needs to be a healthy double-digit scorer… but where is that same energy for the chance creation and goal danger the Dynamo need from Amine Bassi, Nico Lodeiro, Sebastian Kowalczyk, Aliyu Ibrahim, Griffin Dorsey and Jack McGlynn? One man does not a productive attack make.

For Houston to have any chance of pulling themselves out of this dip, it'll take contributions from every nook and cranny of the squad, including rumored DP No.10 Ondřej Lingr and recovering attackers Lawrence Ennali and Nelson Quiñones.

Portland Timbers

The Timbers scrapped the 3-4-2-1 they started the year with two games back – they never got their defensive triggers quite right – and have moved into what’s been a much more natural 4-2-3-1 with Da Costa pulling the strings and the wingers stretching the field both vertically and horizontally.

That last bit is important, because last year (and the year before, and the year before that) Portland’s Achilles’ heel was their propensity for throwing one or both fullbacks up into the attack without any consideration for rest defense or overall team structure. As such, every turnover became a five-alarm fire heading in the other direction, and not even Chara could put them all out.

By keeping the fullbacks deeper and relying upon the wingers to provide most of the attacking width (though not all, obviously; the fullbacks still occasionally get forward, they’re just more selective about it), they’ve become better at stifling opposing transition moments. And honestly, that’s like 75% of the game in the modern version of the sport.

Mostly, though, the 4-2-3-1 has allowed them to get the ball in good spots to punish teams in transition, no matter if the wingers have been wide or narrow:

This is who they are. They’re mid-table in possession but down near the bottom of the league in field tilt because they want to create that space to run into. Over the past couple of games, they’ve done it well.

Houston Dynamo FC

Get on the ball, keep the ball and slowly wear the opponents down by doing so. It’s been the plan for the past two years and it hasn’t changed, even if the personnel out there executing it has.

And look, I admire that. I think the Dynamo’s game model is a good one that suits the vast majority of the roster. I just think they’ve been handicapped by injuries to a few of their best attackers (man, I want Lawrence Ennali to come back 100%), their delay in adding a No. 10, and Ponce’s relative underperformance.

When it clicks, though, it’s beautiful:

There are two keys to all of this:

1. The attackers have to be more dangerous both on and off the ball. It’s the big “play better” adjustment I’m looking for, not “play different.”
2. The backline has to stop making basic errors. Again… “play better,” not “play different.”

The Dynamo can still be the Dynamo of the past two years. They have almost all the ingredients now, and with the season in full swing, it’s time to get cooking.

Hard to see them changing much, though it wouldn’t surprise me if Juan Mosquera got into the XI now that he’s healthy. Still, I’m keeping Eric Miller at right back for one more week.

It’s nominally a 4-2-3-1, but they shift hard into a 3-4-2-1 in possession with right back Griffin Dorsey providing virtually all the attacking width on that side. And I’m just assuming it’ll be rookie Blake Gillingham in goal after Andrew Tarbell (season-ending ACL tear) and Jimmy Maurer (looked like a quad pull?) came off injured in the previous two games.