After a wretched year, a reimagined Houston Dash hope look to hit reset

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HOUSTON — Yazmeen Ryan knows what a winning culture looks like. In four years in the National Women’s Soccer League, the versatile forward has won two NWSL Championships, an NWSL Shield and a Challenge Cup.

Her two league titles came in back-to-back years with different teams — the Portland Thorns and NJ/NY Gotham FC — but they each had similarities in their competitive approach to training, and the team’s desire to learn and grow.

Now, after a blockbuster move following her trade request, Ryan finds herself in preseason with the Houston Dash. For the second time in three years, she will be joining a team coming off a last-place finish that has never won an NWSL playoff game.

“I really wanted to push myself in that next step,” Ryan told The Equalizer following a recent training session at Houston Sports Park. “It was kind of the same thing when I left Portland. Not that the team doesn’t need me, but it was teams that weren’t stacked and had these great players already. It was more of a challenge for myself to come to a team that’s trying to build. I just really thrive with that.”

The Dash certainly have a lot of building to do. Last year may have been the culmination of a decade’s worth of poor league results. The club hired Fran Alonso, who installed a system completely unsuited to his roster. Then he mysteriously disappeared on a leave of absence on June 22. A cloud hung over the club as it languished at the bottom of the table. Alonso formally left the team Oct. 1, having never returned to Houston.