The forecast wasn’t friendly on Saturday night, so the Houston Dynamo and Real Salt Lake had a couple of extra hours to prepare for one another.
Although it took over an hour for either side to break the deadlock, the Dynamo came away with an important 1-0 victory over their Western Conference opponent. Since their hot start to the season, RSL has lost three of their last four matches.
Giles Barnes netted the Dynamo’s lone goal in the 66th minute, shortly after RSL had a quality chance of their own on the opposite end. Following Yuri Yura Movsisyan’s missed breakaway attempt for the road team, the Dynamo captain calmly tallied his fourth goal of the season.
In a first-half with very little action, the Dynamo worked tirelessly to find a goal. DaMarcus Beasley did a fantastic job to work himself free for a cross down the left side in the 39th minute, but the ensuing Torres header was hit into the ground and bounced onto the roof of the goal.
Barnes had another opportunity of his own three minutes into the second-half, when the 27-year-old made a darting run into the RSL penalty area. Fortunately for the visitors, goalkeeper Jeff Attinella was quick off his line and closed down the attempt.
The Dynamo will be back in action next Saturday when they travel to the Chicago Fire. RSL will meet rival Sporting Kansas City later that evening.
MAN OF THE MATCH
Giles Barnes found himself in dangerous positions throughout the second-half, and his goal proved to be the difference for the Dynamo off of a fairly simple sequence.
MOMENT OF THE MATCH
Real Salt Lake didn’t manage many chances on the afternoon, making Yuri Movsisyan‘s chance in the 64th minute all the more crucial. The RSL striker found himself one-on-one with goalkeeper Joe Willis but couldn’t keep his effort down on-frame.
MATCH TO FORGET
RSL’s attack struggled all day against a Dynamo backline that is tied for the second-most goals allowed in the West. The team managed seven shots, none of which came on goal.
I think Houston handled the heat better in the second half (for the postponed match moved to a steamy Sunday afternoon) than RSL. Lot of standing around and one team got enough to sneak by the other. I didn’t think RSL’s offense was that much worse than ours. We wasted an insane amount of crosses.
Houston hasn’t won a road game since last summer, whether that trend continues will say a lot about where this heads. I see the basic issue as we lack the defensive (including DM and GK) quality to regularly and effectively execute a conservative defensive strategy, which I think is where the coach wants to go.
I don’t think coyle wants to go defensive at all. I think he wants an attacking game. Now, it seems, the dynamo get caught up field and get burnt on counter attacks. Our 2 big cbs might not be the right fit to playing defense running towards their own goal. Looks like the team can score, they just need to figure out who can handle the counterattack a on defense.
If you look at the scorelines and the way we have played, the devil may care approach of the first 3 games (11 goals) was abandoned in favor of something else (7 goals in 8 games since then). I personally think our defense stinks so bad that is actually the way we should play. RSL is exceptional in terms of us actually finishing the shutout and getting the result, while playing more controlled soccer.
But I think if you look at the last several games, Coyle is trying to shift this towards more of a defend and counter approach. Problem there: the defense stinks and most weekends can’t get a 90 minute mistake-light performance and result, like this past weekend. Just a few weeks ago we had the same 1-0 over RSL and it ended 2-1 the other way. How many games have we blown lately? And most of those are blown late trying to play bunker soccer.
I’ll be interested if we will have the guts to make some personnel changes over the summer. This is not a bad offense if attached to a better defense. But this defense is a playoff-watching defense.
Not a bad result at all for a side in danger of being relegated to the Eastern Conference.