Trip to LaLa Land

Tonight it's Houston vs Hollywood. The LA Beckhams will pit their offensive prowess against a Dynamo defense that will be playing without ERob and has yet to prove it's up to the standards it set in 2007. On the other end of the field, the Dynamo should have plenty of opportunities on goal due to a porous Galaxy defense.

The official game preview. Not-so fun factoid: "In seven games in all competitions in 2008, the Dynamo have been shutout in five. In the other two, they scored three goals in each."

An article about our goalie for the game. Caig says, "It will be nice to get more touches because unfortunately my first touch with this team was picking up the ball out of the back of the net." Onstad says, "He's helping me along. It's a good relationship, and I think it's going to help the club." I say the term "admirably" should have been left out of the headline until Caig has had more than one good showing. No better time to have a good game than tonight in LA.

The Galaxy should provide plenty of opportunity for Caraccio to have a good outing. He says "It is obviously a different game here [in the US] because we run more. It's more dynamic, but soccer is soccer and little by little I am getting more rhythm." He also admits, "I am here to score goals and win games. It hasn't happened yet, but we are working toward that." The Galaxy backs will provide the chances, will young Caraccio be able to take advantage? Will Ching or DeRo?

Goal.com says "In a two-on-two matchup of the Galaxy’s Landon Donovan and David Beckham against Houston’s Brian Ching and Dwayne De Rosario, the home side probably wins. However, nine other players will be on the field for each side and that’s where Houston has a resounding edge... L.A. will score, but not as much as Houston will. The Dynamo’s midfield was given a boost last week by the return of Ricardo Clark, one of the best two-way midfielders in the game. With De Rosario in front of Clark and those two flanked by Brian Mullan and Brad Davis, the midfield of Los Angeles will be overrun."

Here's one supporter's view of the Dynamo's struggles early in the season.

Fox Sports has a game preview. "Even struggling teams are finding a way to break out of an offensive slump against the Los Angeles Galaxy. Not many clubs have had as much trouble scoring goals than the Houston Dynamo." Ouch. I'm sensing a consensus among the journalistas.

The journalista at the LA Times notes that Lan-Don has "irked" some Dynamo fans. Of course, the irked fans were responding to an informal blog, just as the LA Times is trying to rile up the Galaxy fans by reporting this in a blog. Hey, who is the cool guy who wrote that witty-but-too-lengthy thing about "The coddled team that apparently needs more special breaks"? Whoever that was, he sure sounds intelligent. Good looking too.