Dynamo ran into a buzz saw down in Puntarenas, Costa Rico. In the first leg of their CONCACAF Champions Cup matchup versus Puntarenas FC, Dynamo had to also fight the scorching heat, a pumpkin patch of a pitch (say that 5 times real fast), and a referee who was less than charitable.
I like good soccer, as does any fan of the game; but sometimes I enjoy gritty soccer too. This game was ugly and gritty. Beauty and harmony inspire, but there's drama in a train wreck.
Being that it was an international match there really weren't any surprises with regards to the field, the refs, the crowd, or the scheduling of the match. And that's exactly what the Dynamo needed to experience. It's easy to ignore the crowd of 2,500 in cavernous Arrowhead Stadium on a manicured field -- but can you play your game under adverse conditions? Well, the Dynamo found they can't yet play their game under the adversity of pre-season in Central America, but they found they could survive. If not for an unfortunate ricochet, they would have stolen a point from Puntarenas and left 0-0.
Zach Wells was undoubtedly the MOTM. Unexpectedly thrown into the fray early in the first half, he came up big with a PK save, and shut down the Puntarenas forwards for the full 90...until that blasted injury time garbage goal.
Houston offered little threat to Puntarenas, and eventually resorted to playing 11 men (and then 10 men after Robinson's sending off for unsportsmanlike bleeding) defending the goal.
As I said, it wasn't good soccer, and it wasn't pretty, but it was riveting drama and the result wasn't too bad.
Hopefully, the team learned some things, such as:
- Never give a foreign ref a reason to card you. Act doubly saintly when you're carrying a card. (I must say that, as bad as the reffing was, I was pleasantly surprised that he called back two of Puntarenas' goals -- not only the obvious one after the ball was knocked out of Onstad's arms, but also a very close offside on a set play.)
- If you don't close down your opponent, you give them the space they need to look at their options, to get comfortable, and to test your keeper. Caroms are more unpredictable when you are further from your opponent.
- Don't burn your subs early (which, in this case, was unavoidable after Onstad's injury).
- How one's usual play can be successfully adapted to compensate for bumpy pitches or -- and this will help in Houston -- hot weather. When it's hot, let the ball do the work with more passing, less dribbling. When a ball won't roll straight, put in your big guys and keep the ball in the air.
I think we'll do better in the second leg, which is a gimme prediction since we couldn't play any worse than in the first. The question is: can we play well enough to move on and put this horrendous leg behind us?
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