The Texas Derby resumes today with the Houston Dynamo playing host to FC Dallas at Robertson Stadium. FC Dallas might have some ugly flashbacks to the last visit to Robertson, which was the 4-1 overtime loss in game two of their Western Conference playoff series last November.
In fact, FC Dallas was 0-3 in Houston last season. The Dynamo has won all five meetings between the teams at Robertson Stadium since the Dynamo was formed in 2006.
If FC Dallas has an advantage, it is that the Dynamo will surely be looking ahead to its mid-week CONCACAF Champions Cup semifinal against Deportivo Saprissa. The Hoops will be looking to erase the memories of last week’s disappointing 1-1 tie with Chivas USA, a match FC Dallas was winning late before a Duilio Davino miscue helped Chivas USA find an equalizer.
Today’s match will be shown nationally on Telefutura at 3 p.m. If you plan on watching the match, and will be online, please feel free to share your thoughts, opinions and some play-by-play in the comments section below.
Enjoy the match.
IVES,
Can Juan Toja play for the US? I have always wanted to know if he or Mykel Galindo can play. Toja has not play with the Senior team for Colombia only the SUB 21 team. Galindo played with the Cuban National Team but defected, can’t he under immigration rules or what not play for the US?
@AlexS: Davis is listed as being on the bench…?
Oh no… any bets on Dallas actually walking away with the full 3?
Toja gets a yellow in the 70′ for somthing I didn’t see
Barrett gets a yellow in the 72′ for taking the legs out from under an FCD player.
73′ Dax with a wonderful defensive play to deny Mullan the 1-on-1. Dynamo look dangerous again, but still coming up a bit short.
74′ Oduro on for Toja, FC Dallas now firmly into the counter stratagy.
OK, it was obvious, on comes Oduro for Toja.
lol Casey, you’re on a roll. Oduro comes in for Toja.
I’m glad that was a YC. We can have a physical league, but we can’t have guys hacked down like that.
OK, if your squad is confined to your own half, and your only chance of offense is lobbing balls in to the opposing half, it would seem obvious to bring on some speed.
@brent
Davis is still out injured.
71′ Speak of the devil, Mullan in for Caraccio.
Oh lord. Mulrooney taken down hard by Toja.
Mulan comes in for Caraccio.
Who just outran Toja for that ball in the back? They way Hou has been outrun by everyone in cup and league so far, I fully expected Toja to win that.
First hard evidence for me that the concrete boots they given out might not be terminal and fatal
69′ The Dynamo seem to own the ball, but can’t get it into dangerous positions. You don’t win like that. I’m still surprised we haven’t seen any of Mullan… makes me wonder if he hurt himself more this week.
de-ro hasn’t been the same since he lost his braids
Get the feeling it’s time for a Ricardinho or Oduro.
davis for ashe?
On review, Caig’s position wasn’t as bad as I though, if anything Alvarez should have taken another touch to round him completely instead of shooting from there.
64′ DeRo with a nice shot from distance that Sala spills and Ching follows up on. Sala dives for it again and gets it, fair challange from the keeper that knocks Ching over.
65′ Another cross into the box, another Dynamo header over the bar. I still feel like there are more goals left in this one.
Bad spill by the Dallas keeper, and if Ching still had any wheels it’d be 3 – 3.
Cheers to Dallas’ GK for knowing when to smother a dangerous ball that was being followed up by a dangerous Brian Ching.
Great clearance, Ashe barely even got his foot on the ball.
Watching the replay the keeper actually did a pretty decent job cutting down the angles on Alvarez. Can’t expect keepers to win on 1-1’s.
We all know MLS is a sloppy 2nds (or 3rds) league, but as far as flaws go, I’ll take some more attacking flair with flawed defending for a change. Good times!
Oh that must’ve hurt :/
@ Casey C.
you’re right, once again an attacker run between two Dynamo defenders to latch onto a through ball and scores. But Onstad would have stopped that.
Not exactly the keepers fault there man. Blame the keeper when it’s not the defense breaking down completely.
56′ YOU CAN’T STOP BRIAN CHING!
DeRo wih a nice play, turning the FCD defense and that lets Cameron (?) nail the cross in on the ground for Brian Ching’s outstretched leg.
2-2
DAMNIT! Learn some positioning Caig!
Caig caught out again as Alvarez (?) gets a through ball from Richetti and nails it past Caig for another goal against the run of play for FCD.
3-2 Dallas
Right back atcha! 3 -2, what a game. What a pass by Toja.
Oh man, twist the knife!
Dallas goal on the counter! 3-2!
Caig lets another in. Unreal
Wow.
So close! Man, I hope Ching can get some, any footspeed back, he’s so good on the ball and combining, but he’s no good to the Nats at this glacial speed…
Nice gol! Salvaged to, DeRo gave me Alan Gordon flashbacks falling over himself…
52′
Queue that jailbreak I was talking about.
chang!!!
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL.
Ching! 😀
WTF!
55′ A prone Dualio Davino grabs Mulrooney’s leg and brings him down in the box to keep him from rebounding his own shot and the ref misses it completely!
Epic chance by Houston, hit straight into the GK’s chest though.
53′ Boswell’s boot kills a good Dynamo attack. It’s hard to push the FCD backline around until there’s a break when you boot the ball into the side stands, Bobby.
Unless they had a Come To Jesus meeting at half-time I don’t see that happening… but we’ll see.
mullan for cameron….please!
FCD plays with 3 in the back, and I agree, they’ve looked fairly decent. The problem with the formation is, there tends to be a jailbreak every once in awhile. It’s really up to the other team to make their chances count.
Houston hasn’t looked Bad up front, the cohesion is there. I think Dallas’ back four are having a good game more than anything.
But yeah, keeping Onstad healthy would be a very, very good idea if they want a shot at the SS.
Halftime
Uggh… FCD shouldn’t be in this game much less winning it. They’re proving so far they can defend and score against the run of play, which as the away team is all you really need to do.
Houston’s crossing is subpar, but what do you expect from the numbers 5 and 6 on the side midfield depth chart? (Okay, Ashe is number 3 on the left and Cameron is number 4 on the right)
Boswell doesn’t belong on this backline… throughly unimpressive and always seems to be 10 yards behind the play when a goal is scored.
Caig isn’t bringing it today. He’s let in 2 soft goals, though the chip by Cooper was impressive. That second goal has no excuse. It was hit harder than I thought at first but Ciag had both hands on it and still couldn’t stop it from going over them. That’s nothing on Cooper’s shot, that’s all about Caig messing up. At least if Toja had scored on the rebound it would have just been bad marking.
I knew the Wells for Boswell trade left a bad taste in my mouth…
Shall we list “keep Onstad healthy” to Houston’s to do list, along with Ching? They seem 1a and 1b right now based on a knee jerk reaction to 25 mins of soccer.
I’m also not liking how the Boswell trade worked for them, every game I’ve seen they’ve been badly burned by a lack of speed at the back. Ok, well, his salary is $33k. Still, they are slow.
I dunno what prompted it AlexS but it was a hell of a goal.
Well, that was an interesting first half. FCD is a different attacking squad with Alvarez up top. AA, Toja and Cooper are working very well together.
Half-time.
That was my predicition without realising the game was underway. I am an idiot.
Oh god.
2-0 to Dynamo.
On review of the gaol, I can’t tell if Boswell was on Toja and Waibel moved over to close the angle, with Cameron not being able to move inside in time to stop Cooper or if it was Waibel cutting off Toja with Boswell trailing the play about 20 feet from where he should have been.
houston’s crosses have been pretty bad so far, with the exception of the one goal