What goes up, regardless of how long it stays there, must come down.
For the Houston Dynamo, Friday was the night that their eight-game unbeaten streak would do just that. Naturally, Houston’s unbeaten streak was not going to last forever, but the nature of their 2-0 loss to the New York Red Bulls left the Dynamo wanting more.
“It’s very frustrating,” forward Will Bruin told MLSsoccer.com over the phone. “We knew they were going to come out firing but we had a very solid first half and gave ourselves a chance to grind out some points on the road. We had our chances it just didn’t go our way.”
HIGHLIGHTS: NY 2, HOU 0
Bruin’s frustration is understandable considering the Dynamo looked to be doing the necessary work to pull out a tough away result.
On the road for the second of back-to-back games against a team motivated by a bad loss, Houston cut down chances, stayed organized to deal with frequent pressure, took their shots going forward (outshooting New York 12-9 with 54.8% of possession) and got a few plays to go their way – Tally Hall’s 57th minute save on what would have been a Corey Ashe own goal being a prime example. All things needed to pull out a road result.
However, a few plays did them in. First was a throw-in the 61st minute which saw Roy Miller, Designated Player Tim Cahill and Markus Holgersson combine to put the Red Bulls up. The second blow came in stoppage time from Jan Gunnar Solli, after Thierry Henry barely kept himself onside to break behind the Dynamo defense before squaring to the Norwegian for the finish.
“There was a lot of pressure from them from start to finish and when that happens your mistakes are going to be amplified,” goalkeeper Tally Hall told MLSsoccer.com. “It is frustrating knowing that we could’ve played better … But it’s one of those things where you never get too high or get too low.”
That has been Houston’s mantra this season, during the good times and bad. The Dynamo will look to keep that going and stay on an even keel, even if Friday’s loss was a bit frustrating.
“[The team’s] upset we lost the game especially considering we had some opportunities to get back and get something out of it, but we don’t get too high or too low,” head coach Dominic Kinnear said. “We weren’t boasting when we were winning and we’re not going to hang our heads because we lost a game. We’ve got an important game against Columbus next Sunday and that’s the most important thing right now.”
