Full transparency: I sat down to write this week’s Storylines with absolutely no clue how to make Houston sound interesting. Jack McGlynn is their only ace in the hole, and he’s off playing for the USMNT. What’s left to write about without Héctor Herrera on the roster?
Ah, there it is. Let’s rewind to November 2024, shall we? After a nervous buildup, the big news is official, and Houston fans are distraught; MLS says, “The Houston Dynamo’s Héctor Herrera era is over.” Uh, yikes.
The Herrera era began in Houston two and a half years prior, when the Mexican national team captain (who at the time was still under contract with Atlético de Madrid) made his way to Houston as a DP halfway through a lackluster 2022 campaign for the Dynamo. They’d won only six of 18 matches, and a midfielder with an Olympic gold medal, a Primeira Liga title, and two Supertaça titles under his belt looked like their saving grace.
That wasn’t quite true in 2022, but Herrera had a stellar season once he’d had time to acclimate to the team. It’s not dissimilar to the way Joaquín Pereyra has grown into his position with Minnesota United in his first full season with the Loons, becoming the club’s season leader in assists and excelling in distribution all over the field.
By the same time the following season — Matchday 18, 2023 — Houston was sitting at fourth in the West, looking forward to their first playoff run in a decade. MLS writers agreed that Herrera had successfully revitalized the club, and they weren’t exaggerating. Houston looked good in ‘23, and they made the playoffs again in ‘24, the first time the club had made consecutive playoff appearances since their 2011-13 stretch.
In total, Herrera spent parts of three seasons in Texas, winning a U.S. Open Cup title and being named to the MLS Best XI in 2023. He finished second in the league in assists and made the MLS All-Star Team the following year. Losing Herrera was a massive hit for the Dynamo, but the losses didn’t stop there. The team chose not to exercise options for 10 players total, including Herrera, goalkeeper Steve Clark, midfielder Latif Blessing, defender Daniel Steres, and striker Sebastián Ferrera. That’s a pretty big turnaround in a single offseason. To top it all off, midfielder Coco Carrasquilla, who was named Concacaf’s player of the year for 2023-24, was transferred in January to Liga MX side Pumas for the largest transfer fee in club history.
The team that had made the playoffs two years in a row was gone. Ben Olsen needed some big signings to combat those losses, and so far we’ve really only seen one: Jack McGlynn. The 21-year-old midfielder spent four seasons with the Philadelphia Union before an abrupt move to Houston, where he’s contributed two goals and five assists this season. He’s good — so good he plays for USMNT — but one player can’t (and shouldn’t) shoulder the weight of a whole roster.
It’s not all that surprising that Houston has dropped to 11th in the West, with just 20 points across 18 matches. The Loons did fall to them in a mid-May fixture, but their lineup was almost entirely rotated due to schedule congestion. It was an outlier of a game for Houston, who have lost twice as many games as Minnesota this season.
This isn’t to say that there’s no potential down in Houston. As a unit, they’re still growing into and building their roster, whereas the Loons have had time to gel as a unit. Minnesota are just a lot farther along in their development arc than Houston is at this point in time. McGlynn started truly playing like a no. 10 a few months ago, and if he and Ezequiel Ponce can combine to fill the hole Herrera left, they’ll be getting somewhere. Granted, that particular strategy is dependent on McGlynn staying in Houston rather than being picked up by a European club. Regardless, the second transfer window is on the horizon, making room for some much-needed signings, and the Dynamo we see in the final third of 2025 may well feel like an entirely different team.
