HOUSTON – While the 2019 Major League Soccer season is still ongoing, it’s clear that first-year Houston Dynamo midfielder Matías Vera has made himself indispensable to the Orange.

Of the 23 games the Dynamo have played this season, the 23-year-old has started 21 of them. He’s also logged the most minutes, 1839, out of any Dynamo player.

The next closest on the list is Kiki Struna — also a first-timer in MLS — who has 1800 minutes.

Owning the defensive midfielder position

The Dynamo signed Vera on a full transfer from Argentinian Primera Division side San Lorenzo. Dynamo general manager Matt Jordan saw Vera play while the midfielder was on loan to Chilean side O’Higgins.

It’s safe to say the 5’7 midfielder has exceeded the team’s expectations when they signed him.

And Houston Dynamo head coach Wilmer Cabrera agrees.

“We had expectations, but he has exceeded the expectations,” Cabrera said. “To be fairly new in this league, and arriving, he has adapted. He has taken that position by himself and he owns the position. It’s been very rewarding for us.”

Vera’s play on the pitch has kept other Dynamo defensive midfielders, Darwin Ceren and Juan David Cabezas, on the bench. But it’s an everyday battle in the training field to keep the starting position and Vera comes out on top.

“He’s competing with the other players, he’s been better,” Cabrera said. “And he’s given us more that’s why we cannot take him out. Because he’s been very solid in what he does.

While Vera has indeed made the position his own, he didn’t start out playing there as a kid in Argentina.

Becoming a defensive midfielder

Vera grew up in an environment where soccer was always around. He has family members who played soccer and the passion his family has for the game was transferred to him.

Like many Argentinian boys, Vera started playing soccer in the barrios (neighborhoods) around his community. Vera eventually made it onto a youth team and that’s where his soccer journey started and he began growing as a player.

When he was on youth teams, Vera remembers the coaches putting him in different positions to see where he fit best.

“My first positions were at right-winger and right back,” Vera said. “Obviously, when one is growing they are noticing what kind of virtues one has. From physical to tactical and technical.”

Finally, the coaches put Vera at defensive midfielder and groomed him. Years later, Vera feels comfortable in that position.

One of the qualities that Vera and his youth coaches most likely saw, is his timing on tackles and natural ability to win the ball. It’s a play that doesn’t often appear on stat sheets but it’s important nonetheless.

His teammates have taken notice of it as well.

“He prevents them [opponents] from creating a dangerous opportunity and a lot of the times people brush that off but you don’t see them in the stats but the fans, and the players who know the game they understand that it’s a crucial moment in the game,” Kevin Garcia said.

Timing a tackle, and not committing a foul, is not something a player can practice. It’s more intuitive, and Vera concurs.

“It’s more intuition at that moment, to be honest. And that’s one of the virtues that I have. I don’t question it,” Vera said. “On the pitch, I measure the [opposing] player to see where he has to go and where I can take the ball. It’s circumstances that happen during the game.”

Boniek Garcia, the longest-tenured Dynamo on the roster and who is often paired with Vera in the midfield, said the Argentine reads the game well when it comes to one-v-one battles with players.

“It’s rare that he loses a one-v-one,” Boniek said. “He’s always at the right spot and always takes the ball away with ease. His tackles are hard and he always finds the ball.”

A student of the game

Vera doesn’t just read the game on the pitch. Outside of it, he’s an avid reader of books. And while he reads non-sports books, the vast majority of books that he reads are soccer-related.

“I like to read. I like le to larn. I like enveloping myself in a topic,” Vera said. “One learns a lot through reading. It makes your brain work and it opens up new thoughts and it’s something of a hobby of mines to distract me and to relax.”

Vera is indeed a student of the game and was quick to notice the difference between MLS and the game in Argentina’s first division.

In MLS, he said, the game is faster and is more about quick counterattacks and fast transitions whereas, in Argentina, the game is much more tactical.

One of the first things Boniek told Vera was that he needed to play a little faster because MLS was a league where opposing teams pressure a player more.

And getting used to that difference was tough for Vera in the early goings of the MLS season. His first couple of games were tough to find the rhythm he said. Worse yet, Vera didn’t even finish his first MLS match, picking up a red card in the tail end of the game.

“But I think with the run of games, and getting more confidence, getting to know my teammates better, I started getting comfortable and playing my game,” Vera said. “And today I feel good.”

Vera may not have had the start he wanted in his first MLS season, but suffice it to say, the Argentine midfielder — and student of the game — has more than made up for it with his play on the pitch since then.