Last week was a tough one for us. The loss in Panama was disappointing and the travel week seemed like a long time. Houston was a team with their backs against the wall and were highly motivated. On the day they were better than us.

When you fail you have a chance to learn and now we move forward into this week. We need to win by two goals to advance past San Francisco from Panama. If we only win 1-0 we go to penalty kicks after overtime. Any other one-goal victory line means we are out. We need to look at our team and put out the best lineup. They will sit back and make it difficult for us to score. They will also try and slow the game down. So we need to get the game to be played faster and get the opponent under pressure to create turnovers and get the ball. Width in attack will be important and attacking crosses will also help us be successful. It will be an exciting game.

After Wednesday we are off to Kansas City and a team that has not lost in their new stadium. It will be warm and humid, but we need to find our desire and fitness to do our best in this game. Sporting KC plays with three forwards so that will bring a different challenge and we need to create mismatches that will help us in the midfield area. Our speed in transition will be very important in this game.

I look forward to seeing you all on Wednesday. It will be nice to be at home and play in front of our great fans.

See you then,

Sigi