There’s a path to glory for the up-and-down Houston Dynamo.
And it’s the 2023 U.S. Open Cup.
“With new players in the group it was always going to take a little time to come together,” said striker Corey Baird of a side with eight wins, ten losses and five draws across 23 MLS games (at the time of publication) and sitting in the 9th place slot that divides the league’s playoffs from an early vacation.
“But we’re keeping things going in the Open Cup,” added the 27-year-old former Stanford player. “You have to when you’re only a few steps from winning a trophy.”
Indeed it's been in the blood and thunder of the U.S. Open Cup we’re the club – champions of U.S. Soccer's oldest tournament as recently as 2018 and now in its Semifinals – have found momentum, consistency, goals and hope.
Coach With Keen Cup Past
Head Coach Ben Olsen, who came on board at the start of the current season, knows the Open Cup like the back of his hand. The ups and downs. The chaos. And, of course, the glory.
“It’s all about keeping on keeping on. Moving on. Surviving,” said the Houston Dynamo boss – a former Open Cup winner as a player and a coach with D.C. United. “It’s always a wild ride and no matter what, if you want to win, you have to hang in there.”
“It’s always interesting,” Olsen added with a sigh.
Interesting.
That’s a word the coach uses a lot. And it seems to contain an infinity of meanings. Especially when talk turns to how he and his D.C. United won the Open Cup in 2013, mired in last place in MLS, to salvage what would have been an irredeemable season of misery.
“Winning it [the Cup] in 2013 saved my job,” said the 46 year-old Houston Dynamo boss about his famous run a decade ago as a young coach. “It was a horrible season. Everything spiraled away from us. But the Open Cup kept us together as a group and gave us a north star during really, really tough times.
“It adds up when you have so many losses in a row,” he said about a season he calls “fascinating” and his “most valuable” as a leader. “The Cup kept us from imploding.”
Master Motivator
“He [Olsen] was the master at motivating players,” remembered Bill Hamid, a young goalkeeper for D.C. United in that Cup-winning year who was named Man of the Match in the Final – played away at Real Salt Lake and won 1-0 by the visitors. “He’s got that heart of a lion.
The coach is hoping his master-class motivational skills can help provide a similar pay-off this year for Houston Dynamo as he uses the Open Cup as his north star yet again. It’s something that’s important to him. It was as a player, as part of the all-conquering D.C. United sides of the late 90s and early 2000s, and it remains so to this day.
