HOUSTON—The Houston Dynamo and Toronto FC did not even step foot on the pitch Saturday night as thunderstorms rumbled through the Houston area and caused a postponement of the game, originally scheduled for 9 pm ET.
The match has been rescheduled for Sunday at 9:15 pm ET (MLS LIVE, TSN4 in Canada) at BBVA Compass Stadium.
“It’s obviously incredibly disappointing,” said Dynamo president Chris Canetti, following the confirmation. “This is the second one we have had this year after not having one for a decade of an existence. We also had one delayed against D.C. United. The weather has played an awful impact on our season. There’s nothing we can do about it, but it has been frustrating from that regard.”
The storms started rolling in about an hour before game time and did not let up for most of the next four hours. There were a few instances of lighter rain throughout the night, but the lightning continued.
“Our instruction from Major League Soccer early in the night, when the weather was hitting, was that we were going to try to do whatever we could to play this game within reason and so long as the conditions were safe,” Canetti said. “The only issue was lightning. The field was playable. It wasn’t underwater or anything. It was just a matter of when is the lightning going to end.
“From 10:45 to 11, it became 'Is this now safe for the players, do we have enough time to warm-up, will we have to shrink halftime?' Ultimately, in speaking to the league and speaking with both teams, it was deemed that it was not in the best interest to player safety.”
Unfortunately, the forecast for Sunday does not look good either, with rain chances of 80 percent throughout the day, with heavy rain and lightning in the forecast.
“There’s no doubt that that’s a concern we have,” Canetti said. “Our instruction is that since there is a team in market, to try to get the game in tomorrow. We will deal with that when it comes. If we are unable to play the game tomorrow, we have a couple dates down the road that will be considered for makeup dates.”
Canetti said that if the game must also be postponed on Sunday, they will try to make the call as early as possible.
