HOUSTON – For the second consecutive home game, the Houston Dynamo failed to pick up any points at BBVA Stadium this time in a 1-0 loss to the Seattle Sounders.
The Dynamo dominated possession, 58 to 42 percent, had more passes in the attacking half, 356 to 236, and took more shots, 15 to 7, including 3 on target compared to the Sounders one. Yet, it was Seattle that capitalized on their sole shot on target.
Dynamo feel disrespected
But Seattle’s shot on target didn’t come without a bit of controversy.
@Zakuani11 my guy you really weren’t sure what I was doing? I jumped straight up for a ball and got under cut which caused me to flip. Really in what other league is that not a foul? We can just talk about how many steps he took backwards after I was already up. pic.twitter.com/qv8iNcYaQ9
— AJ DeLaGarza (@AJD_20) July 28, 2019
And Dynamo head coach Wilmer Cabrera made sure to speak his mind on it after the game.
“We dominated the game but I think the referee made a mistake in that goal because that’s a foul. All over the world, that’s a foul against A.J. DeLaGarza but he didn’t call it,” Cabrera said.
“We didn’t receive respect in that moment. Why? Because Seattle Sounders is here [raises his hands] and Houston Dynamo is here [lowers his hands].”
DeLaGarza said that after the goal, he told the ref that the missed call is a foul anywhere else on the field.
“I jump up and get undercut – then go flipping, so clearly, I didn’t jump over a guy that was standing straight up,” DeLaGarza said. “He bent down and I tumbled over the top of him, so – I don’t know how you don’t call that. I asked him [referee] and he has no answer.”
And while Cabrera says his side doesn’t get the respect other teams do, DeLaGarza said some of it is the Dynamo’s doing.
The right-back said the past instances of refs altercations, including getting in refs’ faces doesn’t put the Dynamo in a positive light with the refs.
“So, some of that is on us. [But] they have to call the game correct, I don’t know what else you could say. I think the bigger market teams get the benefit and I have been on a big market team and have seen when I was on that team [the] benefit,” the former LA Galaxy player said.
“So, now being here you are on the flip side. You see the things that aren’t called for you.”
Lack of scoring opportunities
Controversy aside, Houston did have control of the match but couldn’t break through the Seattle defense. The Dynamo had 183 passes in the final third compared to the Sounders 98, but those numbers don’t amount to much unless the ball goes into the back of the net.
“So, we had the ball,” Cabrera said. “We had the passing. We moved the ball, but we weren’t cleaning up at the moment to create options and finish.”
After La Naranja’s Leagues Cup match against Club America — a game in which the home side outplayed the Liga MX giants but came up short — Dynamo winger Romell Quioto said he wished the Dynamo could play like that every game. Suffice to say, Houston didn’t come close to repeating that performance on Saturday.
“Obviously, it just didn’t work out for us in this game and we have to see the film to know what we have to correct and identify what we have to [do] to break down teams when they sit back,” Memo Rodriguez said. “We dominated possession but sometimes we didn’t get anywhere with the ball.”
For the Dynamo, the season to date has been a lot of ‘what ifs’. There have been games where Houston creates scoring opportunity after scoring opportunity but fails to convert them. Or it has games like Saturday’s where creating scoring opportunities seem to be a tall task.
Hondurans missing in action
One thing to point to in Saturday’s loss is that Houston played without the services of Albert Elis and Romell Quioto.
Elis missed the match due to a late decision by Major League Soccer’s Disciplinary Committee to have the Honduran forward serve an additional game suspension for his aggressive behavior toward a match official during the sixth minute of Houston’s game against Atlanta United on July 17.
Quioto missed the match due to illness, according to Cabrera. When the Dynamo are missing both Elis and Quioto, Houston is a different team on the pitch.
“Naturally it was difficult for us. We’re not used to playing without both of them here at home,” Cabrera said. “It changes our style of play because normally we have them both or at least one of them. Either way, we played well — we dominated. What we needed was execution to create goals.”
Houston will have to start creating goals again if it wants to accomplish their goal this season of making the MLS playoffs.
Jesus Acevedo Jr. is the Editor-in-Chief of The Bayoucitian. He’s an award-winning bilingual journalist from Houston, TX. A graduate of the University of Houston, he has written for the Houston Chronicle, La Voz de Houston, MLSsoccer.com, and ProSoccerUSA.
Before becoming a journalist, Jesus spent his early 20s drumming his way across Houston with two bands — Shortcomings and InsertNameHere. The memories that Jesus made as a musician were the seeds that started the idea for the comedy, Houmans: The Series.