Sunday, April 23, 2006

ReAL Close

There was a lot of spirit at Robertson last night. My family (and I) arrived several hours prior to the game and wandered around the booths and ate some grub we’d brought with us. The weather was pleasant, although not as crisp as at the KC game two weeks ago.

The game itself was electric. Dynamo looked sharp nearly the entire game, controlling possession and the field. We sat at the field level, about 18 yards from the north goal line. Great action there in the second half.

It was against the run of play that ReAL Salt Lake scored first. Eddie Robinson recently returned from injury to bring some experience to our back line. Whether through individual rust of collective teamwork rust, he was instrumental in the giveaway that led to Cunningham getting his first goal. RSL up on Dynamo 1-0 early in the second half. Not good.

To Dynamo’s credit, they reversed their recent trend. In their first two home games, Dynamo gave away a goal immediately after going up one goal. On Saturday, Dynamo got a goal off a corner mere minutes after giving up the Cunningham goal. Waibel skied up and knocked home a Brad Davis corner. That’s a goal and an assist from two players recently off the injured reserve. It’s nice to see them back in action again (and with Robinson back as well, we’re nearly full strength).

Jason Kreis (who is always tied to his league leading 101 career goals) had an awesome free kick later in the half that should have gone in. It beat Onstad, but not the woodwork, then traversed across the face of the goal untouched to his the other post, then bounced back in front of the goal before DeRo was able to clear it. Yikes! That ball should have been in, but it was justice to the overall balance of play that they didn’t get that goal.

Note that Serioux played an outstanding game overall, but lost the ball in the back and had to make a professional foul (though nicely camouflaged to appear almost as if their feet got tangled to limit himself to a Yellow) to prevent a goal. It was this foul that led to Kreis’ free kick above.

DeRo had a steal of his own with about 6 minutes left of regulation, and he was able to drive down to the goal and beat Garlick at the far post to tally the winner. That was a nice effort (assisted by a chest-pass from Ching) to make the wonderful gameplay and pleasant evening all the more delightful.

Next week, it’s Colorado again -- this time a mile in the air.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't forget the best part: Your family was on TV during this game! Whee!

Anonymous said...

This was supposed to be tied to the next post. Whoopsie. I'm gonna move it now.