• Matchday 16: New York City FC vs Houston Dynamo FC
• Date and Time: Wednesday, May 28 at 7:30 pm ET
• Venue: Yankee Soccer Stadium, The Bronx, NY
• Forecast: Rainy, rising humidity 61F/16C
• Watch: MLS Season Pass on Apple TV
• Apple Broadcast Team: Jessica Charman and Jamie Watson (English), Jesus Acosta and Carlos Suarez (Spanish)
• New York City FC Radio: Glenn Crooks and Matty Lawrence (English), Roberto Abramowitz and Ariel Judas (Spanish)
• Officiating Crew: Rubiel Vazquez (referee), Eric Weisbrod and Justin Howard (assistant referees), Jeremy Scheer (fourth official), David Barrie (VAR), Brian Marshall (assistant VAR)
• Kits: New York City will wear the black 24/7 Kit; Houston will wear the orange-and-light-blue Season 20 Kit
New York City FC wants to close out a three-match stretch of home games with a third straight win, but to do that, they'll need to get past Houston Dynamo FC tonight on super short rest. It feels like yesterday that New York City dispatched Chicago Fire FC at Yankee Stadium on Matchday 15.
There's momentum building for Pascal Jansen's New York City squad, as their last two wins were each more comfortable multi-goal victories — the first ones this season. On the defensive side of things, NYCFC has only conceded one goal across their last three MLS matches, settling things down a bit after back-to-back losses to Pittsburgh and Montréal earlier this month.
This game is a rare meeting with Houston, a Western Conference squad currently outside the MLS Cup Playoff race. They sit in 10th Place with 17 points gained from 15 matches played. But seven of those points are from the last three games, including a home win over high-flying Minnesota United and an away win over FC Dallas in the Texas Derby.
Oliver Strand
New York City vs Houston H2H
| GP | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 8 | 8 | 0 |
The head-to-head between the two sides is short, sweet, and dead even. In six games played, both teams have two wins, two draws, and two losses, with eight goals scored and eight goals allowed.
Houston won the most recent matchup, a 1-0 victory in Texas on March 25, 2023, that saw a lifeless New York City manage just one shot on target. But the record is different in New York City, where Houston has never won a match: NYCFC has one win and two draws in the three games played at Yankee Soccer Stadium.
The last time the two played on this coast was way back on August 8, 2019. New York City won that match 3-2 on the strength of an opening goal from Alexandru Mitriță and a Taty Castellanos brace.
New York City Scouting Report
• Player Availability: Kevin O'Toole (knee), Malachi Jones (leg), Andrés Perea (leg), and Jacob Arroyave (knee) are all unavailable.
• No O'Toole likely means another start at left-back for Birk Risa. The Norwegian is looking sharp on the flank, where he's connecting with Hannes Wolf and Jonny Shore.
• Matt Freese must be disappointed after allowing Chicago to score on Sunday, but tonight brings a fresh opportunity to log his seventh clean sheet of the season and set a new career high.
• Hannes Wolf is one goal away from matching the five goals he scored last year in MLS. His season best is the eight goals he scored for RB Leipzig in 2017/18 and 2018/19.
• Are we finally getting a taste of Jansenball? Sunday's game featured a fluid attack that ran through the Chicago defense. True, the visitors were reduced to 10 players (and then reduced again to nine), but NYCFC deserves full credit for playing the kind of attractive, attacking soccer they like to see in The Bronx. And Queens.
• To get more familiar with Ben Olsen's Houston Dynamo squad, we had Matthew Mangam check in with Dustyn Richardson of Bayou City Soccer for the latest Oppo Research. Brush up on five big things to know about the Dynamo, like the impact of new signings Ondrej Lingr and Pablo Ortiz, Houston's desire to dominate possession, and more.
Matthew Mangam
