Marked for Héctor Herrera
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Oct 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Felipe Andrade was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad12 Oct 2026
13 new faces, and Houston Dynamo are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Nelson Quiñones has seen what the next man earns
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Houston Dynamo that is a harder question to answer.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match3 Oct 2026
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Houston Dynamo are no longer polite ones.
Market5 Oct 2026
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nelson Quiñones will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Houston Dynamo the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Market5 Oct 2026
Mateusz Bogusz wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Houston Dynamo hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Houston Dynamo can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad5 Oct 2026
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Héctor Herrera did the work nobody counts — 6.87
9 combined actions and 6.87. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Houston Dynamo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Felipe Andrade is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by David Zardes to a room that had heard them before.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad21 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Houston Dynamo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Houston Dynamo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Felipe Andrade is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Artur has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Houston Dynamo will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Market21 Sep 2026
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Houston Dynamo know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Lawrence Ennali has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Nelson Quiñones asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market7 Sep 2026
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Diadié Samassékou had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Market7 Sep 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Houston Dynamo, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market7 Sep 2026
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Houston Dynamo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Lawrence Ennali has agreed terms with New York Red Bulls for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Guilherme slips down the pecking order
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Guilherme is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Blake Gillingham, and the manager let it.
Market7 Sep 2026
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Duncan McGuire signs something — a contract at Houston Dynamo or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Looking ahead7 Sep 2026
LA Galaxy next, and one man in the Houston Dynamo dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
Owen Tillman asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad3 Aug 2026
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Market3 Aug 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Houston Dynamo heard it as anything else.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Héctor Herrera and Houston Dynamo agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Héctor Herrera and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Market3 Aug 2026
The name of Blake Gillingham has come up in conversations Houston Dynamo were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Match1 Aug 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Market3 Aug 2026
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.