In the end Chivas USA got a 2-1 win over the Houston Dynamo to gain a one goal advantage in the home and home series. Take the result out of this one, it was a good advertisment for MLS.
Both the Dynamo and Chivas USA have coaches in Dominic Kinnear and Bob Bradley who value ball possession, winning with an emphasis on quality soccer, and stick to a traditional 4-4-2 which spaces players out in a way that more space can be found in the middle third of the field leading to more entertaining soccer.
This game had it all….controversy, great goals (Razov free kick, Palencia header, and a clinical cross and finish between Brian Mullan and Brian Ching), and a saved penalty in the final minutes…..Game 2 in Houston should be even better with a huge value on the first goal this Sunday at Robertson Stadium.
MLS coaches like Bradley, Kinnear, and Peter Nowak should be lauded for putting an entertaining product on the field more often than not with a mere budget of 1.9 million dollars. Coaches that don’t value the importance of the way the game is played along with results should not be hired at this stage of MLS’s existence…sorry, it is about MORE THAN JUST RESULTS at this point. Last check nobody was attending games in Colorado, KC, New York, to name just a few and even the crowd for the Dynamo and Chivas USA was limited this past Sunday night, I was there.
This game’s future needs coaches who take pride in the way their teams play, if they don’t have the players to play that way then they need to be accountable for their player selection. Why is it that Bob Bradley always finds the top college players? Why is it that DC United consistently finds the best foreign players? Because they are doing a better job than others, bottom line. Time for all to be accountable because without accountability MLS will continue to find excuses.
We need more games like this past Sunday’s Houston/Chivas USA match.