The MLS Rivalry Week continues on Tuesday night when two of the Texas teams meet at the Q2 Stadium when Austin FC host local rivals Houston Dynamo in a match where there is more than just rivalry at stake, particularly for the home side.
A win for Austin FC will take them to the summit of the Western Conference and ahead in the race for the Supporters’ Shield. Dynamo will be looking to light a spark into a season which has just fluttered with the fringes of being a success.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on the Free Sports channel in the UK. The build-up begins at 2am with the kick off coming soon after. It will also be available with the bookmakers that live stream games.
Austin FC
One of the surprise packages of the season so far has been the emergence of Austin FC. This is only their second season in the league so to be contending in the way that they are is a fine achievement. The beauty of this Austin outfit is although most wins in MLS come at home, the green machine have picked up a number of wins on their travels and that has set them up with the chance to go to the top of the table if they come out on top here.
A lot has been made of the attacking play of Austin FC and it is right for that to be the case because they are the joint leading scorers in the MLS this term, however not as much is made of their defensive record which sees them with the second best goals against number in the Western Conference. Austin have won four of their last five matches and only LA Galaxy have come away from the Q2 Stadium with a win this term.
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Houston Dynamo
We keep on expecting the Houston Dynamo to turn their struggles around but there aren’t really any signs of it happening. They will hope that the marquee signing of Hector Herrera will be the catalyst for a turn around. He doesn’t just bring immense quality in his position but the Dynamo will be hoping that his presence in the dressing room can inspire others to raise their game and start delivering the goods. A win here would put the Dynamo within two points of the top seven so the campaign isn’t a write off just yet.
One of the issues the Dynamo have is that their away record is poor. They will be hoping that a relatively short journey helps with that here but they won’t need telling that even though Austin struggled for much of last season, they still beat Houston twice on this ground. Houston have got their combative midfielder in place to allow them to control possession but they lack a potent centre-forward and need to address that in this window if they are going to move forward.
Betting
We should see some very good footballers on the pitch over the course of this match as Austin FC kept Sebastian Druissi and Maxi Urruti on the bench for the opening 45 minutes of their win over Atlanta at the weekend with an eye on them playing a bigger role in this match, while the Houston Dynamo could give a first start to marquee signing Hector Herrera after he made his debut from the bench in the 2-2 draw with Dallas on Saturday.
I suspect that Austin FC will win this match but I respect the derby element to this fixture and having just seen the Houston Dynamo score an equaliser in the 101st minute against Dallas it is clear that they will keep on going. I still won’t oppose Austin FC on home soil but the better bet might well be for them to score more than 1.5 goals. They have done this in five of their eight home matches and covered it in both fixtures between these two here last season. They also scored twice in Houston earlier in the season and with Josh Wolff rotating his attackers well in the win over Atlanta on Saturday there should be enough fresh offensive talent on the field in green to score twice here too.
Tips
Back Austin FC – Over 1.5 goals for a 3/10 stake at 1.73 with Betfair
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