The tactics were as clear as a bell from the San Jose Earthquakes. Missing 6-7 starters including captain Bobby Convey, Ramiro Corrales, Ryan Johnson to injury, international duty and suspension it all worked in the end for Earthquakes manager Frank Yallop.
We had to see this coming. Defend deep, attack through skill and athletic players like new DP Geovanni, Arturo Alvarez and Cornell Glen. The signs were there early.
It was only three minutes in when Quakes goalkeeper Jon Busch hit a drop-kick that put Glen behind the Dynamo defense to fire the first warning. Another tell-tale sign was the lack of desire from Arturo Alvarez to get into the attacking third of the Dynamo.
Brazilian signing Geovanni started out lined up as a striker but eventually and wisely drifted deeper into midfield which ultimately became a great place for him to attack from.
Yes, I will say it, the San Jose Earthquakes did not want the ball so as not to lose their shape as a team, so they could be positioned with the Dynamo committed forward, to break on the counter-attack. Both Quakes goals came against the run of the play but I would not call them “true” counter attacking goals. Both came down to lack of real conentration from the Dynamo and respect for the situation at hand.
GOAL #1: Khari Stephenson 6th minute: In-attentive defending cost the Dynamo here and this goal is not on a counter-attack. The Dynamo are actually positioned well behind the ball to defend. Chris Leitch would play to the feet of Geovanni who about five yards inside the Dynamo half was allowed to turn. He would begin to go forward, given time and space with Geoff Cameron shadowing him, Mike Chabala seemed to be pulled to far out wide, nobody committed to the ball and a surprised Cameron could then not block the cross that found Stephenson. In the end Geovanni ran through 7 players directly to turn in the cross, it looked to easy with no one committed to pressuring the ball or to making a tackle. No real urgency defensively from the Dynamo and their casual nature was punished.
In older days the whitening is not removed, leaving the watery role, pharmaceutical pitted and ridged virus exposed. cipro 500 mg for uti About chemicals of molecules with a-t have advantages of the conflict-of-interest day.GOAL #2 Brad Davis 45th: This was all about the persistence initially of Brian Mullan who collected a ball deep near the corner flag and pull two defenders out with him before making a brilliant cut to get back to the area on the end line he vacated, his initial driven cross was denied by Busch at the near post but as the ball came back to him he speared it towards the far post where Brad Davis headed in spectacularly to the far side netting. The goal was a momentum boost for the Dynamo heading into the locker room.
GOAL #3 Geovanni 63rd: This goal would be scored on the counter attack and after a clear chance from Cam Weaver was missed off a corner ironically. Brandon McDonald would play a give n go that would take him through the whole Dynamo midfield rather easily, he would square his cross back to Cornell Glen would have it tackled away by Mike Chabala towards the top of the penalty area and Geovanni would out run everyone , un-marked to the loose ball and smash his finish past Pat Onstad.
Think about this……I don’t believe San Jose felt the Dynamo could score goals against them based on their confidence level currently. Without Brian Ching in the lineup the rest of the stable of Dynamo strikers which includes the departed Luis Landin, Dominic Oduro, Joseph Ngwenya and Cam Weaver have scored a total of 5 goals. Add Ching’s 6 and you have 11 goals scored from strikers and that includes the recent Ching hat trick. Yes, the Dynamo have had problems this year creating chances but they also have not been good in front of goal, 11 goals is just not going to get it done from strikers. This was a night that this game could have been over at half time with better execution in front of goal.
Of course the Dynamo possession was dominant because of the tactics employed by San Jose who defended as deep as any team I have seen this year without putting pressure on those sending in delivery from wide. How much have this season have the Dynamo played from behind and without the luxury of goals? The answer, alot.
The hope here was to get a win, keep hope alive going into a two week break with Toronto FC up next. Playoff hopes are dimmer after this loss with San Jose the team the Dynamo are pursuing for the 8th and final playoff spot.
The crowd was noisy and passionate at Robertson .
Give me your thoughts on the Dynamo loss to San Jose, is it over for the Dynamo as far as the playoffs are concerned?
THREE HOURS OF SOCCER TALK ON SPORTS TALK 790 TUESDAY FROM 7-10pm
Join me for Soccer Matters with Glenn Davis presented by MEMORIAL HERMANN SPORTS MEDICINE INSTITUTE from 7-8, and then Dynamo All Access with Glenn Davis from 8-10 pm for three hours of soccer talk tomorrow night. Soccer writer Steve Davis will join me as well as other guests that will be confirmed including Dynamo coach Dominic Kinnear and midfielder Richard Mulrooney. Shows stream live on Sports790.com, call in number 713-212-5790.
Get your tickets for Dynamo and Toronto at FIESTA TICKETMASTER locations or Houstondynamo.com
Twitter: Soccermattersgd
Danish Inspirations
Fiesta Mart
Houston Web Design
Memorial Hermann Sports Medicine Institute
SportTalk 790
Zukowski, Bresenhan & Sinex, L.L.P.
Glenn- Ugly but effective soccer from Quakes. As you stated they basically dared Dynamo to score and way Houston is offensively this season, it isn’t going to happen.
Geovanni looks like he can be a difference maker, which is what you want from a DP.
See Spenser’s club- Timbers already inked shirt deal, with Alaska Airlines. This batch of coming expansion teams- Portland, Vancouver, and Montreal will be really strong additions to MLS
Play the kids. It’ll be good experience for them heading into next year.
I assume you are talking about Danny Cruz, Sammy Appiah, Navas Cobo, Hall etc.
With Kinnear pride I don’t believe you will see that concession until mathematically this team is eliminated.
I could be wrong.
Glenn it’s over, they will be mathematically out of it as soon as Real reach 44 points with another tie, and Dallas needs 4 more to reach 44, that will see 4 West teams that will have mathematically eliminate Houston from passing them. Seattle needs more work but Houston is not catching them and they own the tie breaker. NY is only a matter of time before they mathematically eliminate Houston from passing them, Chicago is about 4 points ahead of Houston with 2 games in hand, that can be 10 points in deficit.
No way they catch them either with only 21 points left.
They are done, Dom should just cut his loses and since he didn’t get any players to score he should prepare the young guys who have been waiting. Navas is in South America so it won’t matter too much but give Cruz, Hall, Appiah a look. What do you lose?
Mulrooney seems like will go, not sure about anyone else on Defense, maybe Serioux will go as well, I think they have to decide on Palmer or Obadai and partner one of them with either Cameron if Dom moves him to MF or with Mullan who is a fighter and well is about the only spark.
Ching has been lacking service, but again why do you give a guy in his mid to late 30’s a 300K 3 year extension? There’s about 5 or 7 guys scoring more and assisting to the rate of potential MVP candidates that get paid less than him.
Oduro nees to go, how long do you give him, Nwgenya is a better version of him but should also be on the bench if he doesn’t produce. Cam Weaver can’t score to save his life and is injury prone, I don’t remember but I think Houston has no draft choices so they better cut the dead weight and bring in some players that can make a difference!
Giovanni has 2 sub appearances of maybe 20 and 35 minutes each I believe, then he started and played 85 yesterday so he’s basically played in 3 games, 1 start almost a full game, the other a decent but short 20 minutes and the other a bit longer almost complete half of Football, minutes wise he’s played about a game and a half. 1 goal and 1 assist, so far he’s worth whatever they are paying this dude! I hope they keep him he can only make the league better and maybe help the Quakes get their SSS!
Glenn,
This season is over. Watching this team play is like supporting a team like Wigan……just plain tough. At least Jon Busch kept me company during the second half…Now there is a classy individual.
Guys, look for me on September 18 against Toronto, I will be the guy wearing the paper bag over my head!
Mathematically ? They’re cooked emotionally, with the majority of the team running around with their collective tails between their legs – I initially thought it was due to the loss of Stu and Rico, but way too much time has passed, and too many games played, to continue to rely on this excuse. I think it would be best summed up in a play in the second half last night, when we won a corner kick and Mulrooney placed the ball. Davis ran up to try a little two-man trick play off the corner, but a SJ player was immediately there to defend it. Davis and Mulrooney back off, and then, even though the SJ player saw it happening again and went in to defend it [again], Mulrooney and Davis ran the play anyway. It busted. Isn’t that the definition of insane ? Doing the same things over and over [like starting Weaver, expecting Oduro to finish, running a set piece even though you see the other team eagerly defending against it], but expecting a different outcome ?
Even if the Dynamo managed to pull a rabbit out of the hat and win enough remaining games to make an 8th seed, the competion’s game is so much better on so many different levels that the HD would never make it out of the first round. Take a look around, there’s way to much speed to contend with these days, and our guys are just too slow. Name one Orange player that could pick up the ball at midfield and run, maintain possession through anyone’s defense, and take a shot within the 18 yard box [or even have the intiative to do such a thing]. Unfortunately, I cannot.
Yes, I’m a season ticket holder, and yes, I’ll continue to go to the remaining home games, but I expect no miracles from this team and this point.
Anybody that thought this team could make a playoff run is on the company payroll. This team has not won back to back games nearly all season. Our goal should be not to finish in last place in the west.
The young players need playing time. we know what the vets can do. We need to evaluate what the kids can do so we can decide who we want to keep. That means more than minutes . It means matches.
The question that if we could win without Clark and Holden has been answered. No one stepped up their game. I think we filled the defensive center mid. The attacking one is still a question mark.
What to do with a weak offense and defense? I have no idea.
On the FSC broadcast of the Colorado-Houston game, they cited a stat or fact that the Dynamo had not won back-to-back MLS league games since June (maybe July) of 2009. Which is probably the longest streak in the league, excluding Philadelphia.
Expecting us to win 6 of 7 down the stetch is unrealistic.
I would think we will have the effort and may be mathematically alive for a few more weeks but if you don’t use the last 4-5 games to evaluate players for 2011 and beyond, you are wasting a real evaluation opportunity outside of weekly training.
The roster shuffle will be interesting for 2011.
Lots of change coming to remain competitive in MLS, no question.
I’ve stopped posting for a while because of my frustration as a fan and Dynamo loyal, really….This year has been very frustrating, because, yes…everyone has gotten better all around and seems like we were still just waiting for everything to be the same on the field and at the stands…
Well it hasn’t, the tactics are the same…many of the players are old and slow, we have a good coach but he needs to start being a little more flexible with his coaching…every game is different and on most nights this season, he’s been outcoached just like his players have been outplayed…
There’s a saying that a coach is about 30% responsible of the success/failure of a team, and in this case I think Dom has been giving us about 5 or that 30% all season…
Late substitutions, not giving Tally Hall a chance to grow even when he was excelling (this is the biggest of mistakes), always playing with the same attack attack tactic, while seems to me not working on other things like finishing…
I honestly think most of these guys do not work on finishing or ball control at all…sometimes it’s frustrating…
I am a STH and will be forever but, it’s frustrating to see the same of the same and still keep thinking it’s going to work..
Will just leave you guys with this anecdote from this last game and let’s see what you guys think of the disconnection of the team with the Hispanic futbol culture…(Im of Mexican descent, so Im not being racist here, just an observation)
There was a group of about 15-20 teenagers sitting next to me, that looked like were just coming from their own club game (all hispanic as said) and from what I gathered just listening to them, they had been given free tickets to the game….
Well they spent the whole game, critizicing the Dynamo and “comparing” them to their favorite Mexican League teams (America, Chivas, etc)…and they were even rooting for San Jose…They wanted the Dynamo to fail…
This was a little heart-breaking to me, because there seems to be a huge disconnection between these potential fans or even players, with their home-team…
What are the things that the Dynamo need to do?…I don’t think signing a Hispanic DP just because of race is a good thing, but the reality is, people do want to be represented…
…….
mv
Moises,
Great insight from youth at the game, alot to be learned both on and off the field currently for this franchise. It is a time for flexible thinking, a time for innovative ideas and creativity. Also a time of challenge. All of this can lead to exciting opportunity. I am loving the fact that fans are critical and have “real opinions’ and facts to back them up.
This shows the growth of the sport!!!!
It might be showing the growth of the sport, Glenn, but tactics as of late have shown us a lack of initiative or ‘flair’ on the part of the coaching staff and players. Since the HD won back-to-back championships, we’ve hosted F. Carracio, A. Akinbiyi, L. Landin, etc. – and we’ve paired them with the aging group of guys [Onstadt, Robinson, Mulrooney] with limited success. On the wings waiting are kids we’re NOT playing – Appiah, Cobo, Ashe and Cruz [save for a few starts]. Even Davis has gotten bumped from his starting role by a guy who I feel is mediocre at best [Obodai].
I also think alot of our coaching probs have to do with Spencer leaving. He was the most vocal at training sessions and games. If I see Dom sitting on the bench chewing and spitting with his arms across his chest watching his D-line getting punk’d one more time…
Going forward they will need to make some serious changes…I agree that people will get tired of the same old, rigid strategy. Flexibility will be important going forward.
Also, we will see what the coaching staff and FO can agree on along with who really makes the call. Can this new team of coaching staff/FO make something in the new era of the league or resort to weak old strategy? The time has come for the new group to execute the results.
No question that moves Dynamo have made have not paid off with Caraccio, Akinbiyi, Landin, Weaver among others.
Really across the board mediocre seasons for everyone which doesn’t cut it currently in MLS.
Geoff Cameron might get a pass due to injury and there are alot of “what ifs” but in the end this team has not been good enough which signals change which will come in time.
What the Dynamo has lost has not been replenished.