KC withers and Dynamo soar

What a hot, miserable time to play a soccer game. The players and coaches will say that everyone has to play under the same conditions, but the fact is, it feels a lot hotter when you're behind than when you're ahead.

And, as B-Fall put it: Sunday's 3-1 home victory ... was as good as they come.

Pre-game guide.
Post-game recap.

Says one article: Entering Sunday's match against the Kansas City Wizards, Kamara, an MLS veteran of 54 matches, had never recorded a single assist in his career. Before the match he told a few friends of his that he wanted to get rid of that donut that, to some, makes him look like a selfish player.

The post-game quotes include this one from ERob: "We knew that mentally, if this beautiful weather today wouldn't get to them, just being down might." I'm sure that "beautiful weather" was said with sarcasm, not praise for the 12th man (or 13th man, if you count the fanbase as the 12th).

I remember The Dom complaining about a 3 o'clock game in summer of the 2006 season. That one was scheduled due to TV commitments; but surely this game wasn't played at this godforsaken hour because of Telefutura!?

My two favorite events of this game:

• In the first half: Brad Davis' one-touch rocket into the net from a Kei Kamara layoff.
  
• In the second half: Stuart Holden's unselfish and prescient touch off to Nate Jaqua to get the goal that effectively won the game. Stuie had a good look on goal with that ball, but his pass was pure class. And the goal, coupled with the heat, crushed all of KC's motivation.

I didn't even mind the consolation goal that Davy Arnaud (from nearby Nederland) earned in the 87th minute.

I do think Brad Davis may be practicing his attacking headers this week. Minutes after his first goal, he missed what should have been an easy header on goal from the back post. It was nearly identical to one he muffed in the previous game versus Chicago. My wife said he shouldn't be doing headers anyway, because his ears probably unbalance him. (She is actually a big fan of "Keebler".) Luckily, in both games Davis made up for his muffs with a dynamite assist in one game and a dynamite goal in the other.

So now we're solidly in the Western Conference lead, 7 points ahead of #2 RSL. Overall, we're behind only Columbus (which has 43 points) and tied with New England and Chicago. The Supporters' Shield is a longshot, but still a possibility. Taking the Western Conference and having homefield advantage through the MLS Cup tourney is something that is not only feasible, but had better be realized. I'm still holding out for the Supporters' Shield, even though our upcoming schedule congestion will make that a difficult feat.

In his weekly MLS recap, Steve Davis has this to say about Brian Mullan:

Because Brian Mullan is usually surrounded by more dynamic players (De Rosario, for instance), several internationals (Pat Onstad, Clark) and younger, emerging forces (Stuart Holden), it's easy to forget what a guy like that means to Houston. Manager Dominic Kinnear knows exactly what he'll get from Mullan every time on the pitch.

When opponents are in possession, Mullan tucks inside reliably when the ball is on the other side. When it's on his side, he's always in the right spot, helping the right fullback. On offense, Mullan consistently, effectively links with the man playing behind him and can be counted on to supply two or three good crosses a half.

Brad Davis, on the left, does some of the same. But where he's more of a goal-scoring threat with a tendency to drift inside often, Mullan is more of a classic flank attacker, always providing the width that stretches defenses.

You need guys like De Rosario and Clark to win championships. But you'll never get there without the dependable workadays such as Mullan.

USMNT
Solid showing by the USMNT in Cuba, I thought. Ching did well in his role holding up the ball, and got the assist on the goal, laying off the pass that Dempsely put away. I agree with Doug McIntyre that Ching was the field player that probably did his respective job the best. (Tim Howard being the best and most valuable player overall.) People clamoring for new faces up front will rip him for missing that sitter near the end, but the big Hawaiian played his role as a target forward to perfection. He was able to effectively body up with his back to goal from start to finish and set up the winning strike doing just that.

McIntyre also has an article that laments the lack of offensive umph from the USMNT. Although the U.S. team deserves full credit for winning two difficult road matches to begin this potentially treacherous round of qualifying, it has done so by using a combination of grit, good fortune and Howard. The Americans didn't create many quality chances against either Guatemala or Cuba, and with all due respect to Brian Ching, who next to Howard was the best player on the field Saturday, their forwards still simply cannot score.

Other Soccer Coaching News
After a 3 year hiatus, I've been pulled back into the soccer coaching ranks to coach my son's U16 team. The kids are older and more sarcastic since I last coached, so I'll have that obstacle to overcome.

I have a new philosophy that I'm instituting now that I'm running the zoo. My focus is to ensure every player has the individual dribbling skills to hold their own regardless of the team (whether club or school) they play for next year. I've always worked on passing exercises and taught positional play in past terms as coach, but now I want every person -- regardless of position -- to be an excellent First Attacker (or "guy with ball") and excellent First Defender (or "guy on the guy with the ball"). To work towards this, the first 30 minutes of each practice is on footwork and 1v1. In this first half hour I'm also working on receiving skills, since players with good footskills must be able to pluck the ball out of the air and get it to their feet for their footskills to work.

After the first 30 minutes, I am working on some tactics, mostly in 4v4 mini-matches. But the emphasis is individual development.

The most likely result is that we won't win a lot of games since I'm not focusing on masking weaknesses through teamwork. Hopefully another result is that the players do become more adept at individual play...but it remains to be seen if the kids will do their part to make this happen. It takes practice and discipline and patience, and I don't know if this group of teenagers has that. We'll see.