Houston Rallies to Beat Galaxy
There was an interesting comment made Saturday by Columbus Crew Coach Sigi Schmid, a remark that easily could have been applied to Sunday’s Galaxy game at Home Depot Center.
“At some point you’ve got to make history and you’ve got to change things,” Schmid told the Columbus Dispatch after the struggling Crew had given up an early goal and lost, 2-1, at home to the Chicago Fire.
“It’s not just a Columbus problem. It’s a problem in the mentality of all the players in this league. They don’t function as well [once they fall behind].”
Don’t tell that to the Houston Dynamo.
On Sunday, Houston (10-8-9, 39 points) fell behind when Landon Donovan scored in the 29th minute, then rallied to earn a 2-1 road victory that cemented its second-place position in Major League Soccer’s Western Conference.
The loss left the Galaxy (9-13-5, 32 points) anchored in last place with only five regular-season games remaining, three of them at home, and one of those a potentially playoff-decisive encounter with rival Chivas USA on Sept. 30.
Oddly enough, the Dynamo came into the match with a 2-7-6 record this season when allowing the first goal. According to Schmid’s theory, having yielded the goal to Donovan, Houston should have lost the game.
Conversely, the Galaxy was 7-1-1 when scoring the first goal.
But the teams disregarded those statistics -- and Schmid’s assessment of player mentality -- in a match that saw the Galaxy play the better soccer, especially in the first 45 minutes, but come away empty-handed.
On Wednesday, the Galaxy had defeated Houston, 3-1, in the U.S. Open Cup semifinals, but it could not repeat that performance.
“We should have scored more than one goal in the first half, and that came back to haunt us, obviously, in the second half when we didn’t play well,” said Coach Frank Yallop, who lost for the fifth time in 16 games since taking charge in June.
Yallop said his team’s first-half play was “probably the best since I’ve been here” but added that fatigue had taken a toll in the second 45 minutes.
The Galaxy goal came at 28:12 when Alan Gordon, who was triple-teamed, managed to thread a pass through for Donovan to run onto and put the ball past Houston goalkeeper Pat Onstad.
It was Donovan’s team-high eighth goal of the season -- twice as many as anyone else -- and his seventh in 12 MLS games since returning from the World Cup.
The Dynamo wasted little time in tying the game, however. In the 32nd minute, Brad Davis swung a corner kick in from the right and teammate Craig Waibel eluded Gordon, who was marking him at the far post, and steered the ball in with his right foot.
The game-winning goal was something of a fluke.
Davis and Galaxy midfielder Peter Vagenas were fighting for control of the ball. When both fell to the ground, Vagenas swung his leg at the ball to clear it and unintentionally directed it straight to Dwayne DeRosario.
The Canadian international has long been a thorn in the Galaxy’s side, his winning goal in the 2001 MLS championship game being the most painful.
DeRosario pounced on this unexpected gift from Vagenas, rounded Galaxy goalkeeper Kevin Hartman and stuck the ball into the roof of the net.
DeRosario said “the team showed a lot of character” in coming back not only in this game but also in the wake of Wednesday’s loss.
Ten minutes after Houston had taken the lead, it was reduced to 10 men when winger Brian Mullan -- one of five former Galaxy players on the Dynamo roster -- kicked Donovan in the calf and was ejected for receiving his second yellow card.
“The red card really changed the way we approached things and we kind of dropped into a [defensive] shell, with nine guys making sure there were no gaps and easy lanes through,” Houston Coach Dominic Kinnear said.
Even so, it took a smart save from Onstad in the final minute of stoppage time to deny Quavas Kirk, whose blistering shot might have earned the Galaxy a tie.
