Monday, August 18, 2008

A Robertson Goalfest

As I was out of town this weekend on a final summer fling before the kids go back to school, I didn't get to watch the game live (neither in person nor on The Tube). B-Fall's blog kept me in the loop Saturday night, and I got to watch the match a few days late when I returned home to my DVR.

What an exciting match. Even an American would have to love the volume of scoring. Six goals in one half, and one being a rocket from Ricardo Clark. Other goals came from Mullan with some moves, Ching with his foot, and Jaqua with the game winner. I think the only Man In Orange unhappy with the match would be Onstad, who had to pick the ball out of his net 3 times. I would imagine he feels the same as The Dom, who said: "It was an exciting game for the fans, with some great attacking play, some loose defending, and a lot of goals. The results were the most important thing to come out of tonight. We won, we are on top of the conference, and we are happy about that."

Official recap. Another MLS article. A third party recap of the game. (There's a joke that goes something like: Houston has two seasons, summer and August. It's not a particularly good joke, but it makes the point.)

Interesting quotes...
from Beckerman: "I don't even know if you should really be allowed to play in this type of heat."
from Beckerman again: "We definitely wanted to come get three points and make a statement that we're for real. We felt like we weren't getting respect from them, from some of the statements about us, what they felt about us, so we really wanted to come down and really put it to them. But they're a good team, and they play really well in Houston in all this heat." I wonder what comments the Dynamo made that "dissed" the RSL squad. That doesn't sound like the MIO.
from Findley: "They were champions a couple of years ago, but I look at them like any other team." A few years ago? How about the previous two years, and still the reigning champion.

Things get dicey now. Wednesday has Chivas USA coming to town. Due to international call ups, we'll be without Ching (ouch), DeRo (ouch), and Onstad (OUCH). Chivas will be without Guzan (the GK has left the MLS to ply his trade with Aston Villa) and Kljestan (who is with the USMNT). They'll also be without a boatload of starters due to injury (Eskadarian, Marsch, Vaughn, Zotinca and maybe Bornstein, Razov, Galindo, and Suarez). It's always a testy match with Chivas Jr, but with Caig in the goal it could be really interesting too.

Other news: Dynamo Reserves roll to first place with a 4-1 defeat of RSL Reserves.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Welcome back! Since you weren't there, I can confirm that it was really hot and sticky and still...not a breeze to be had. Towards the end of the game a light fog started rolling in, it was an excitingly bizarre game.
An interesting story...
Shortly after kick off two couples took their seats next to me and I overheard one of the guys explaining the game to the girl...within minutes there was a Dynamo goal and all types of action down our end...this girl was on her feet shouting and going nuts! I then heard the guy say to her: see I told you, you'd get into it.
That's what I love about the beautiful game, you can't help yourself, it is so passionate that it gets you pumped no matter what the scoreline or your knowledge of the game.
Go Dynamo!

M@ said...

It's great when soccer noobs get to a game and then get into the game. We're lucky that Dynamo-Houston plays the kind of soccer (and gets the kind of results, usually) that appeals to fans.

I think the hot, sticky, and still weather is the primary thing that will keep the Dynamo players from remaining here once they retire from professional soccer. It's an unfortunate feature of Houston, but I suppose the temperate winters make up for it.