Houston Dynamo open preseason training with new faces and plenty of options for 2026 season

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — New energy and new players highlighted the first day of the Houston Dynamo’s training.

“I am excited”, Head Coach Ben Olsen said. “I’m jazzed. Look, it’s been a long off-season.”

The club signed four significant players this week.

“All four of them captains, all four of them leaders, all four of them champions,” President of Soccer Pat Onstad said.

Midfielders Guilherme from Brazil and Agustin Bouzat from Argentina join defender Lucas Halter and Mexican superstar Hector Herrera, who returns to the Dynamo after 82 appearances from 2022-24.

“This club has always been home for me,” Herrera said. “They received my family and my objective is to come and objective is to come and help the team win.”

“He’s coming here to accept any role and to help this club get back into the postseason and to help me because I’ll need him,” Olsen said.

Hopes are high this year after failing to make the playoffs a year ago.

“This team that we put together, even at this point, and we’re still not finished, I think this team gives us a very good chance,” Onstad said. “I think Ben, reluctantly as a coach, will probably tell you the same, gives us a good chance to make the playoffs.”

The team blends the experience of the new players with a young core that is much deeper than it was a year ago, giving Head Coach Ben Olsen a nice problem to have.

“This will be probably one of the most competitive teams that we’ve had ever had in my time coaching,” Olsen said. “From a management standpoint, it’s going to make my life a little bit harder, but from a coaching standpoint and winning games, this is what you want. It gives you a bigger ability to adapt within games, which I don’t think we’ve necessarily had for a while.”