Thursday, June 21, 2012

Houston Dynamo Take Fans on Roller Coaster Ride While Picking up 4 Points

One can forgive Houston Dynamo fans if they're feeling rode hard and put away wet this morning, it's been a long, emotional week for them, and the week isn't even over yet.

This long week began on Saturday when the Dynamo hosted their rivals from North Texas, F.C. Dallas, at BBVA Compass Stadium. This was Dallas' first visit to the new Dynamo stadium and the only match between these two clubs this season.

The Dynamo got off to a quick start thanks to a Will Bruin goal in the 3rd minute. In light of the rough season that Dallas has had, many fans, especially Dynamo fans, suspected that the early Dynamo goal would demoralize the Dallas players, and it did for the rest of the first half.

Schellas Hyndman must of fired up his players with a good halftime speech, because Dallas started the second half like it was a whole new game. When Jackson picked up the Dallas equalizer in the 59th minute, there was a sense that Dallas was not going to be content to leave Houston with a draw and one point.

Any plans Dallas had for picking up the win pretty much died in the 63rd minute when Jair Benítez picked up a red card for an off the ball elbow to Colin Clark. Then, in the 76th minute, Adam Moffat scored a goal from distance, giving the Dynamo the win and bragging rights.

Last night Toronto FC paid its first visit to BBVA Compass Stadium and, despite sitting at the bottom of the Eastern Conference table, started the match like a team determined to win the league. In a chaotic first 22 minutes Toronto went top first with a goal by Jeremy Hall in the first minute. Bobby Boswell managed to tie things up for Houston with a lovely header in the 20th minute, but then Danny Koevermans put Toronto ahead in the 22nd minute. Thanks to second Koevermans goal in the 45th minute, Toronto had a 3-1 lead over the home side at the half.

Those of use who grew up Houston sports fans are used to our professional teams playing to their competition - putting up great performances against top teams while losing to the bottom feeders they should easily beat. Unfortunately for them, based on twitter, it seems that many Dynamo fans are no familiar or used to that dynamic, because their tweets during halftime suggested the world was coming to an end, that this was the worst Dynamo match ever, and the season was over. I was almost surprised I didn't see any fire Dom tweets during the half.

For the second half, it seemed that the Dynamo managed to channel their inner 1993-1994 Houston Rockets, the team that turned Houston from Choke City into Clutch City, and decided that Toronto was not going to leave Houston with 3 points. Will Bruin ended up playing the Houston hero picking up goals in the 73rd and 90th minutes, giving Houston a 3-3 draw.

The Dynamo's week is not over, they head north of the border to face Montreal on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. The match will be broadcast on Fox Sports Houston.

Friday, June 15, 2012

Ever Get the Feeling You've Been Cheated?

The day just kind of headed in this direction I guess, earlier I saw my old High School friends were getting their punk band back together, then Pandora was on a riff that took me back and now The Other F Word is on some cable movie channel . . . memories seem ripe, so, time for me to go down memory lane tonight . . .