KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Anyone who thinks Wade Barrett has given up on the Houston Dynamo this season – and on his hopes of having the “interim manager” tag taken off for 2017 – should have heard him in his postmatch news conference.
Barrett made his feelings clear, both in what he said and in a telling moment when he was unable to speak.
“I know where we are in the standings, but every single game matters to me,” Barrett said on Friday night, after Raúl Rodríguez's stoppage-time goal salvaged a 3-3 draw for the last-place Dynamo against Sporting Kansas City. “I told them at halftime, 'Maybe it's a foregone conclusion that this game's going to be a loss for us. Maybe it is. I don't know.' But --”
Barrett paused for several seconds, visibly collecting his emotions.
“I sure as hell want to have – I want the players to do it in the right way,” he went on. “I told them, 'You know what? I don't know if the result really matters at this point, but the fight and the character that we have the potential to show in the second half, that matters to me.'”
The Dynamo, struggling early against Sporting's high pressure, were down 2-0 after 26 minutes and still trailed 2-1 at the break. They responded with Alex's equalizer just before the hour mark – but then fell behind 3-2 when Dom Dwyer scored for Sporting in the 81st minute.
“The one thing I still feel like we're missing – and it's happened in many games – is that killer instinct,” Barrett said. “You guys saw the game, too. We had a couple of very good chances at 2-2, around 60 and 65 minutes. We had a few chances.
“I say when you get your foot on somebody's throat, when you get on top of a team, you have to have a result. Now, we got the two goals, but we should have had more.”
The Dynamo caught a crucial break, though, when Sporting midfielder Roger Espinoza fouled Boniek García on the right flank late in stoppage time, giving Houston a set piece in dangerous territory.
Rodríguez delivered on Garcia's long free kick into the penalty area, knocking home a header that went off 'keeper Alec Kann's outstretched hand, hit the crossbar, and deflected off Kann again into the net.
“These things can go two ways,” Barrett said. “The guys fought back. I thought the response in the second half, the fight and the character that we showed at the beginning of the second half, I was really impressed with.”
The Dynamo's first comeback actually started in the 30th minute, when Mauro Manotas opened his MLS account – but scored for the third time this season against Sporting, after netting twice in Houston's 3-1 victory in U.S. Open Cup play on June 29.
“I'm very very happy for the good performance by the entire team and with my first goal,” Manotas told reporters in Spanish. “Now we must just keep working to repeat it."
