Dynamo Not Quite Cooked
The pitch was a mess. The heat was, well, hot. The humidity was high, and the referee was a bit questionable, but the Houston Dynamo managed to only go down one – nil to Costa Rican side Puntarenas FC. In fact, it wasn’t until injury time of the second half that Puntarenas was able to find the back of a ten-manned Houston net.
In all reality the score should have been much different than it was, and not in favor of Houston. Even at the end of the first half, it was evident that Houston was just trying to make it out of this game with a nil – nil draw.
The first fifteen minutes saw Puntarenas have two free kicks from twenty yards out, both of which amounted to nothing as the first was blasted into the wall, and the second found the arms of an awaiting Pat Onstad.
The nineteenth minute saw an Olimpia cross find the outstretched hands of Onstad, however a charging Jorge Enrique Barboza failed to recognize the keepers control and crashed into him. The ball trickled out of Onstad’s hands and found the net. The referee made the proper decision spotting the foul and disallowing the goal. However, it was this incident that would see Onstad pick up some sort of knock in his leg and be replaced by back-up keeper Zach Wells in the twenty-second minute.
The twenty-seventh minute saw Barboza go down a bit too easy in the box as the ball sailed well over his head. However, the referee saw a penalty kick and awarded it to Puntarenas. Fortunately for Houston, Zach Wells passed his first test as he waited until the last moment to dive left and save Kurt Bernard’s shot. Perhaps Bernard was having an off day, or maybe it was this stop, but for most of the remainder of the game he appeared to be a bit off.
Puntarenas continued to command the field giving Houston very few, if any, real chances. It was obvious in the last five minutes of the first half that Houston just wanted to hear the half-time whistle.
The second half looked much like the first half, with Houston hanging on, and looking for the counter attack. This would all change, however, in the seventy-second minute as Eddie Robinson picked up his second yellow card for what appeared to be an argument with the referee over the lack of a call that left him with a severe knock to the back of his head. Five minutes later the referee made another disagreeable call for Houston fans that saw an uproar on the Houston bench, and Assistant Coach Bruce Morgan sent off in a bit of a huff.
Houston played the remaining half-an-hour as any shut-up-shop team would. They allowed few good chances for Puntarenas to look on goal, and kept sending the ball upfield to a lone Dwayne DeRosario.
Eventually the heat and exhaustion got to the Houston Dynamo as the last five minutes was a barrage by Puntarenas looking for something to take with them when they wrap up their tie in Houston next week. The Puntarenas attack would not go unrewarded as they found their goal late in stoppage time as Kurt Bernard made up for his missed penalty. The ball was dropped back to Bernard who was waiting uninhibited at the top of the box as he had done all game. This time Bernard made good thanks to a deflection from a Houston defender.
Both of these sides will have to improve drastically on their performances if they hope to advance out of the semi-final round. They will wrap up play against each other on March first in Houston.
Puntarenas FC: 5/10 | Houston Dynamo: 4.5/10
