Once again: we're even with the mediocre

I was tired Sat night/Sun morning so I executed my right to rewrite this...

Tonight the draw with C-Bus seemed more like 2 points lost than 1 point gained. We cling to our lead in the Western Conference (but one Dallas win or two Chivas wins can erase that since they have games in hand on us), but we trail behind New England and DCU for the Supporters' Shield. Our fate is no longer solely in our hands. We have to win the majority of our remaining games in order to earn the Shield, and New England and DCU (and the teams that have games in hand on us) must also lose a few. Given the nature of this league, however, I think we're practically guaranteed the Shield if we go on another long winning streak.

The key is that we need to win in order to have the winning streak.

Tonight, we tie (barely), at home, to a mediocre C-Bus Crew team, which played most of the game with only 10 men.

That sentence (run-on though it is) is chock full of reasons to be depressed about the result. In the opening 15 minutes, I was surprised how wide open the game was. We were looking dangerous and moving the ball around, but C-Bus looked equally dangerous with their direct play and their ability to move the ball around our box once they got there. I thought we might see a 3-3 match after seeing the back and forth play and the shaky defense at both ends.

We were lucky that the Crew’s first golden opportunity hit the crossbar, but Cochrane's role in that play was a harbinger of what was to come. Sure enough, in the 17th minute, Schelotto fakes Cochrane out so smoothly that Cochrane is lucky that he wasn't given a wedgie and had a "kick me" sign placed on his back in the same play. Schelotto then lays the ball off for Alejandro Moreno, who had long ago proven that he doesn't score often in Robertson Stadium, but he decides to step out of character tonight. For the second time in as many meetings, Moreno scores on his former team.

Dynamo starts to press harder for the remainder of the match. D-Ro has a great shot from distance turned aside, Jaqua has a 1-on-1 with the goalie that gets sent into low earth orbit (forwards have no excuse for doing that, particularly early in the game), and Ngwenya sees his loads of opportunities wasted. The beginning of the second half portended an orange-dominated play. Yet, it was not until late (80th minute) that we could make hay of our possession. At that point Ngwenya, freed by a give and go with Clark just outside the box, worked his way into the box at the north end and got off a shot, the shot was saved, and Jaqua picked up the trash and evened the score. Because the goal came so late, it was blessed relief. We didn't stop there, though: we continued to pressed and a win seemed possible. Ngwenya and D-Ro both found themselves with great opportunities taken away by timely tackles, while another fast break by Ngwenya was nullified by a (ref-unseen) shirt pull by Ezra.

Not long after the match ended, the blessed relief of the late goal faded back into disgust at what we lost (2 points) and to whom (a mediocre team down to 10 men). This is really getting old: we beat quality teams, we tie mediocre teams, and we lose to cellar-dwellers. Where is the logic in that? Is there a certain quality horrible teams share (perhaps a compacted defense?) that we can’t overcome while others can? If so, is this the quality that fuels our inability to score on short-handed teams? Just this season, we weren’t able to score on a 10-man RBNY in NY, Colorado in Commerce City, and Toronto in Houston. We were able to score on Chivas when the Goats were down to 10, but we were already up 2-0 at that point.

What’s the connection? What does that say about our weaknesses?

Abby Okulaja proves to be his usual inconsistent self. He had help: in the second half the east-side AR called Wondo offside after an excellent through pass to Wondo in the box. Offside? There was a Crew defender (in addition to the keeper, naturally) sitting (literally) inside the box at least five yards between Wondo and the goal. Dynamo players enthusiastically pointed this out, and the AR seemed to recognize that he made an error -- I was only about 10 yards away from the linesman, so I'm basing this assumption on his body language and snippets of conversation I could hear after he made the call, but I could be wrong. Nevertheless, Abby gives the Crew a free kick after our opportunity was already snuffed. Um, oops.

(Is there a loophole in the rules so that a player can be called offside if one of the two opponents (between the player and goal) is kneeling and taking himself out of the play? I didn’t think so.)

Thankfully, not too long after this, Jaqua scores.

Another complaint, while I’m at it: Can’t the stadium run the clock past 90 minutes? Just keep it going, guys! We'll tell you when to stop! Another facility related gripe: go back to an announcer who doesn’t mumble; tonight the mumbler made it difficult to hear most of the names of the subs coming in or the players going out of the game. This isn't a big problem for me with the Dynamo subs, but I had trouble keeping up with the Colorado players.

Before I go to bed, I have to focus on the positives, just so I go to sleep with a warm glow inside me:

• We got a point
• We finally managed to score on a 10 man team
• We played well and had sufficient opportunity to put this game away (dang finishing)
• Mulrooney and Ianni played excellent games
• Ngwenya is taking responsibility for his missed chances in saying "I had three clear chances I wish I could have put away. I think I need to get back to training and start being serious again. I need to start putting away chances again. I think I was a bit too relaxed. " Nice to hear the commitment, but why weren’t you already serious after the penalty kick fiasco vs Pachuca?
• My daughter caught a T-shirt