Friday night’s match up saw the Dynamo taking on a team that had beat them by a combined scoreline of 7-0 in the first two meetings this season. This time, however, the Dynamo played the Montreal Impact at the friendly confines of BBVA Compass Stadium. Being at home ended up making a difference as the Dynamo were able to get an important 1-0 win.
Ricardo Clark got the game winning goal early, in just the 5th minute. Clark gathered the ball at the top of the box after nice combination play from forwards Giles Barnes and Will Bruin. Clark took a touch and shot from outside the 18. The shot may have taken a deflection off an Impact defender but it always had eyes for the back of the net.
The early goal ended up holding up for the remaining 85 minutes and the Dynamo had the win that pushed them past Montreal into 3rd place in the crowded Eastern Conference. Being in the top 3 at the end of the season would mean not having to play in the Wild Card game, an extra game between the 4th and 5th seeds to determine who plays the 1st seed. I spoke with Brad Davis after the match and he said that a high seed was very important but he feels wherever they finish, he has confidence in the team. Davis spoke about being the 5th seed last season with the toughest road to MLS Cup and still coming together as a team to make it to the Final. Davis added, “This is the type of team that feeds off people not expecting us to do well. When our back’s against the wall we tend to come crawling out.”
The next test for the Dynamo comes Wednesday night against rivals Sporting Kansas City. The match at BBVA will be missing a lot of star power as the Dynamo will be without Jermaine Taylor and Boniek Garcia and SKC leave Graham Zusi and Matt Besler at home, all for World Cup Qualifying matches this week. With the Dynamo now just 4 points behind SKC a win could be big in vaulting Houston into 2nd place. I would argue that 3rd place is better than 2nd because the 2nd leg is at home for the lower seed. Again, that is just my opinion. Regardless, the Dynamo will fight for 3 points Wednesday, if nothing else, to get revenge for Sporting KC stopping the Dynamo’s MLS record home unbeaten streak earlier this season (and then celebrating on the field.)
If the Texans and Matt Schaub have you down, get online, get yourself some tickets for Wednesday, and get out to BBVA Compass Stadium. Houston needs to root for some good guys, a playoff team who plays hard every time out. That’s the Dynamo. You’ll have a good time and you won’t be burning any players’ jerseys in the parking lot. Oh don’t get me started on the Texans….
