Photo by John Rieger/USA TODAY Sports
By SKYLAR ROLSTAD
A heavily physical encounter between the newest additions to the Western Conference saw both sides share a point Saturday.
Rivals Sporting Kansas City and Houston Dynamo fought it out in a 1-1 draw, with goals at each end of the match’s duration. Dom Dwyer and Ricardo Clark both scored set piece goals, and yet again, Benny Feilhaber assisted the Sporting KC corner-kick goal, which Dwyer headed in from eight yards away in the 6th minute.
On the same end of the field, Clark also sent a header from short-range into the net in the 78th minute. Brad Davis assisted Clark from the corner flag.
Sporting KC midfielder Krisztian Nemeth thought he had the winner late in the match, but he was rightfully waved offside. SKC also may have had a chance to win a penalty in stoppage time, but the referee ruled that the ball did not touch Luis Garrido’s outstretched arm.
The teams combined for six yellow cards and 30 fouls. An obvious physical match was capped off with an 86th minute red card to Houston midfielder Nathan Sturgis. Sturgis’s reckless tackle on Roger Espinoza earned him the card and sent Espinoza out of the match.
Dom Dwyer received his fifth yellow card of the season for an altercation with Tyler Deric in the 45th minute, and he’ll miss Sporting KC’s next match, away to Toronto FC on Aug.8, as a result.
The Dynamo made their second visit to Sporting Park in 11 days. The first ended in defeat for Houston, a 3-1 loss that sent the team out of the US Open Cup at the quarterfinal stage, but this time around,
Sporting KC bounced back from a 2-1 away loss to Real Salt Lake last weekend and keep a home unbeaten streak intact.
I guess this balances out the handball that was called in skc’s favor last time they were @ bbva. What’s going on with the refereeing lately? Seems like it’s been a special kind of terrible.
Rico’s goal didn’t come from the corner flag, was a Davis free kick from near the sideline about 5-10 yards from the corner. Yes that is an overly anal distinction.
Oh, and the ref totally blew the handball no call, seemed obvious to me and I’m a Dynamo fan.
2:00 mark for Rico goal
http://matchcenter.houstondynamo.com/matchcenter/2015-08-01-sporting-kansas-city-vs-houston-dynamo/details/video/45876
The ref was indicating the ball was behind him when it his hand, but what the heck was Garrido’s hand doing way out from his body. I don’t think it was intentional, but it was a handball.
Sturgis was not a red. Maybe a yellow. Two players going for the ball.
Dynamo lucky to get out with a point. While I’m happy it wasn’t called, it was a handball.
This was the most frustrating game I’ve seen in quite a while.