American Soccer News

Dynamo rally to repeat by Chris Snear

© Jonathan Larsen/Diadem Images The Revs Wells Thompson battles Houston’s Ryan Cochrane for the ball

WASHINGTON D.C. (CSA) - The last time the Houston Dynamo were in RFK Stadium, head coach Dominic Kinnear closed the locker room for 54-minutes after another loss, at the time, to DC United. He ranted for 20-minutes and then the team aired out their issues and emotions. On Sunday however, after an unpolished first half, Kinnear asked for just 5-10 percent more from his team as they were down to 1-0 to the New England Revolution. He got that and more as the Dynamo scored twice in the second half to defeat the Revolution for the second year in a row and claim the MLS Cup 2-1 before 39,859 fans in Washington, DC. Houston is first team to repeat as champion since DC United accomplished the feat in 1996 and 1997. United’s second win was also at RFK Stadium. Dwayne DeRosario scored the game winning goal in the 74th minute and assisted on Joseph Ngwenya’s equalizer in the 61st minute to claim Most Valuable Player honors. He is the only two time MVP in MLS Cup history. Six years ago in his rookie season, he came off the bench to score the Golden Goal that won the league title for the San Jose Earthquakes at Columbus Crew Stadium, 2-1 over Los Angeles. The Revolution have now reached the MLS Cup four times in the last six years and have come short in each attempt. This loss however, was the first in regulation time. “No, not at all,” said Kinnear, if he had another meltdown. “However that gets thrown out there that I’m a paint peeler, that maybe happens twice a year. For me, and the guys will testify to that, it was just play a little better; the field kind of slowed us down a bit as the ball was getting stuck in our feet a bit and I just told the guys that if we pick up our play maybe 5 or 10 percent I think we’ll be in good shape…The halftime speech was pretty calm. We had a lot of time left to score one goal and get back in the game.” New England’s Shalrie Joseph and Steve Ralston had most of the ball in the first half, controlling the tempo and producing quality attacking opportunities. After a quiet first quarter hour, Taylor Twellman was the benefactor of their work scoring in the 20th minute to make the score 1-0. Twellman’s header from eight yards out beat a helpless Pat Onstad to the near post after Joseph played a simple ball behind the Houston back line to Ralston on the right touch line. The Dynamo responded three minutes later when DeRosario’s cross from the right flank hit Avery John in the back but deflected right back to him. His subsequent left footed blast from inside the penalty area sailed over the top. The Dynamo were clearly out of sorts in the attacking third. With New England carrying most of the possession, DeRosario spent little time on the ball and could not make the late, penetrating runs that are his most effective. “I thought the first half from my perspective, we looked a little tentative, a little nervous for the type of guys we have. At halftime no one was really down, we got 45-minutes, we haven’t played our best stuff,” said Onstad. “I think just in general we didn’t have a very good first half. We said at halftime that everyone needs to come out and be 5% better and take a little bit better care of the ball and come out and be relentless in the second half,” said Houston captain Wade Barrett echoing Kinnear. “In the second half we needed to take better care of the ball and come out and be relentless in the second half and I thought we did great in the first 30-40 minutes doing that.” After a sliding Onstad knocked the ball away from Pat Noonan just a minute into the second half, Ngwenya created a good chance two minutes later but his bouncing shot was knocked away by goalkeeper Matt Reis. Kinnear switched formations moving Barrett into the midfield and playing with three defenders. The tactical move worked two ways. Pressuring Joseph higher adding an extra body in the midfield and playing a more direct game versus moving down the flanks which was not working in the first half. “Higher pressure,” Kinnear said was his tactical adjustment for Joseph along with the formation change. “It was hard for either team to move the ball because the field was sticky. We told Dwayne to step more on Shalrie Joseph to take him away from the game and I thought our forwards were more active when the ball turned over.” Joseph and Ralston, who left the game with severe cramps in the 78th minute, had far less room to work in and collected the ball deeper and with fewer attacking options. Their primary target was Twellman alone as Noonan needed to come into the midfield to help collect the ball.

“We proved our will to win. This has never been a group that gives. I wouldn’t want to win with any other team. They are dedicated and full of determination…” Dwayne DeRosario

“When you go to a 3-5-2, you rely on your back three and Richard to keep the game close and I thought Ryan (Cochrane) and Eddie (Robinson) and Craig and Richard back there and Pat organizing them did a really good job. Pat Noonan was a thorn all day with his movement,” Kinnear added. “I think Jeff and Shalrie were getting a little bit too much time on the ball and spraying it and playing it up top and Pat Noonan could come off the front and sit in a good area and he’s a very dangerous player,” said Onstad about New England’s first half success. “I thought the service was too easy but once we snuffed that out we made it a lot more difficult for them. I think there only options in attack were to knock the ball wide and have Wells (Thompson) and Khano (Smith) knock it in,” he continued. “Good players find the ball and I thought he had a very, very good game today spreading the ball but we kept him away from the dangerous parts, which is in front of our goal,” added Richard Mulrooney. “I thought we did a good job of creating a field in front of our goal that they didn’t really have a lot of great opportunities in terms of shooting and dribbling in there.” Houston picked up the attacking tempo and Ngwenya equalized in the 61st minute pouncing on a loose ball after a scramble in the front of New England’s goal. Brain Mullan sent the original ball into the penalty area from the right flank that was flicked by a Revolution header over the back line to the far post. After whiffing on his first attempt, the ball bounced back to him which he buried from seven yards out. The game winning goal was an anomaly for DeRosario, pounding a header of all things past Reis for his 5th career playoff goal. DeRosario stepped in front of and outjumped Jay Heaps to a perfect cross by Brad Davis. Craig Waibel sprung Davis free with crafty ball down the right flank. That goal was preceded by a superb build-up by the Dynamo that resulted on a good save by Reis on a left footed shot DeRosario from 12-yards out just a minute earlier. Onstad made his most critical save when he needed to knocking away a Jeff Laurentowicz’s header from close range header off an Andy Dorman corner kick in stoppage time. “Unbelievable,” Mulrooney said about Onstad’s save. “The ball went over my head, I turned and (saw) a big group and it went through them and all of a sudden I heard it hit somebody’s head and you always expect to see the net ripple. And then I heard it hit Pat’s hands, he’s some of the best hands in the league and then I saw it cleared.” “Thank god, Christmas came early,” said Mulrooney. “The game’s over,” defender Craig Waibel said were his thought immediately after Onstad’s effort. “Your goalkeeper’s job is to make one save that saves the game and he did it.” Onstad’s save was the capper as the Revolution sent waves forward in hopes of getting the equalizer. Onstad was anticipating the thrust forward after they had taken the lead. “When we went up 2-1, I said, ‘okay, now it’s your time’ and a guy came for a cross right after and I got hit pretty good and I said, ‘okay, you’re into it’ and I’m just glad I go to contribute to it,’ said the 39-year old Vancouver native. “It seems every MLS Cup I have one big I have to pull out that makes the difference” In last year’s final also a 2-1 Houston victory over New England but on penalty kicks, not only did he save the final kick on Jay Heaps, he deflected clear a point blank shot from Taylor Twellman in the 26th minute. This save however, was purely reflexive to a ball coming from the panicked New England attack. “Somebody told me it was my leg but honestly I couldn’t tell you,” said a smiling Onstad. “He’s in tight so I know he really can’t put in the corners so I tried to stay big and hope it hits you. My biggest concern was the rebound because I knew I wouldn’t have time to react to the rebound and fortunately it got by the first wave of attackers and it was cleared.” “The reaction was great but his eyes were always on the ball and he was always keeping his eyes out for anything else because it was a crowded penalty area,” added coach Dominic Kinnear. The loss to United was the turning point in the season for Houston who were playing well but not winning. In that May 26 game, the Dynamo fell behind 2-0 after 30-minutes but still fell 2-1 to United. After losing five out of six games and rarely scoring, they hit their nadir. “We were playing well but not winning games and it can test your confidence and your metal a little bit,” Kinnear said. “We had about a 45-minute meeting that was in your face for 20-minutes and after that it was everyone else have a little go at it,” Kinnear recalled, not knowing it lasted as long as it did. “(We) said, ‘hey, let’s get it all out in the open and get the emotions going’ and after that we took the attitude of last year is last year and let’s get back there this year. For me it’s one of those where you stop worrying about defending your title and go on out and try to win another title and we had an attitude switch.” To finish his MVP performance off with a sparkle, DeRosario blocked the last two crossing attempts by Michael Parkhurst in the waning moments.

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	1	2	F
Houston	0	2	2
New England	1	0	1

NE — Taylor Twellman 3 (Steve Ralston 2, Shalrie Joseph 2) 20

HOU — Joseph Ngwenya 1 (Dwayne De Rosario 2) 61

HOU — Dwayne De Rosario 2 (Brad Davis 1, Craig Waibel 2) 74

New England Revolution — Matt Reis, Avery John, Jay Heaps, Pat Noonan, Jeff Larentowicz, Steve Ralston (Andy Dorman 78), Michael Parkhurst, Khano Smith, Taylor Twellman, Shalrie Joseph, Wells Thompson Substitutes Not Used: Doug Warren, Adam Cristman, James Riley, Marshall Leonard, Abdoulie Mansally, Sainey Nyassi Houston Dynamo — Pat Onstad, Eddie Robinson, Ryan Cochrane, Brian Mullan, Brad Davis, Dwayne De Rosario, Craig Waibel, Nate Jaqua, Wade Barrett, Richard Mulrooney, Joseph Ngwenya (Stuart Holden 80) Substitutes Not Used: Zach Wells, Patrick Ianni, Chris Wondolowski, Paul Dalglish, Mike Chabala, Corey Ashe

	Houston	New England
Total Shots:	14	14
Shots on Goal:	7	8
Fouls:	15	15
Offsides:	1	1
Corner Kicks:	3	4
Saves:	7	5

Misconduct Summary:

HOU — Wade Barrett (caution; Professional Foul) 57

NE — Khano Smith (caution; Game Disrepute) 65

Referee: Alex Prus Referee’s Assistants: Adam Wienckowski; Rob Fereday 4th Official: Brian Hall Time of Game: 90:00 Weather: Cloudy, 55 degrees Attendance: 39,859

Chris Snear can be reached at csnear@cybersoccernews.com. © Snear/Cyber Soccer Associates, LLC 2005

DC’s last-minute scramble fails

© Jonathan Larsen/Diadem Images Chicago’s Diego Guitierrez (left)and Gonzalo Segares battle DC’s Christian Gomez for the ball at RFK

 

by Steve Long

November 1, 2007 (ASN) — WASHINGTON The DC United-Chicago Fire series was a tale of two games. But, it was even more a tale of two halves and two different styles. DC United practiced all week to play its classic controlled possession game, only to allow the Fire to dictate the pace for a disastrous first half at RFK Stadium.

The 2-2 result relegated them to spectators at the MLS Cup Final to be held on 11 November at their home stadium.

The Fire’s game relies on an organized defense that keeps many players behind the ball at all times. They frustrate opponents, and then counterattack quickly to get enough goals to win. Their first goal came from a failure of United’s midfield to contest a throw in to Caleb Carr, who took advantage of the time afforded him to send a sweet pass to a loosely-marked Chad Barrett.

His slanting run split United’s inattentive central defenders and set the forward free to put Chicago up 2-0 on aggregate. Up to that point, DC had shown only a few flashes of its usual possession game and grew even less focused on imposing their will on the Fire.

Greg Vanney described how it worked for the Fire, “A team sits back because they don’t want to get opened up against a team like us. We have so many talented players and if you start leaving gaps, we’re gonna pick you apart.

“So, what they do is they sit back with tons of players and try to just clog up everything, and it turns into an ugly soccer game that you just have to play with urgency.

“I thought in the first half we were forcing balls in. Sometimes you have to move the ball around the perimeter of all their stuff and force them to shift from side to side, and that creates gaps in there and then you can play forward.”

That dictated more support for the midfield to swing the ball.

“I never really doubted ourselves because I think we have been the best team in the league for the past two months.To come to D.C. and score two goals is incredible. To fend them off is pretty hard to do. Not many teams can do that, and we have done it twice in the past two years…” Fire goalkeeper Matt Pickens

After going down three goals on aggregate in the 33rd minute, coach Tom Soehn sent in holding midfielder Rod Dyachenko for defender Marc Burch to give his team better control of the central portion of the field. The switch to a 3-5-2 settled down the team and enabled them to finally begin to switch the ball with greater rhythm and consistency.

Dyachenko explained his role, “The plan was Clyde (Simms) sitting as kind of a fourth defender and I’m sort of interchanging with Christian.”

Simms continued, “You have a game plan, but you always have that sense of urgency, when you’re down. But as soon as we moved to the 3-5-2, it helped us a lot.”

He pointed out that, “They had an extra guy in the center of midfield, so it was tough for Christian and me to get into a groove. As soon as we put Rod in there, it made it much better.”

For the remainder of the game, United gradually morphed into the dominant team of old. Simms’ long scoring shot in the 69th minute came after a solid sequence of controlled passing from Christian Gomez and Dyachenko, and energized the team still further.

Simms’ effort was followed only five minutes later by a classic Gomez goal that showed the value of his mixture of fiery commitment and the skill to execute. He almost willed the ball into the net to draw United level on the night, but still a goal short of the aggregate tie required.

As time ran out, DC threatened repeatedly and seemed to have pulled off the magic equalizer only to have referee Jair Marrufo cite Gomez for handling the ball as he fought to push another hard-fought goal into the net. The midfielder’s hand touched the ball as he tangled with the defender and the call, while justifiable, did not reflect the generally loosely-called game that preceded it.

Vanney offered that, “In my opinion there were a lot of hand balls in this series, and they decided to call one and that was the one that would have helped us the most.”

Vanney also described how United took over control of the game, “I don’t think we were moving enough either…to force them to really think about what they were doing defensively. It’s easy if you stand and everybody checks back to the ball, you’re easy to defend.

“But, if you start getting guys place changing and trying to get in behind them in different types of runs, it forces their defenders to pass you on and do other things. You create gaps and you open up a team that sits back like that with a lot of numbers. But I thought we were very predictable in the first half.”

“I’ve got to say yes, because they beat us. I can’t sit here and say anything different because I hate when people do that. They fight hard, they have a bunch of brutes in the back and we just didn’t deal with it. Right now they are better than us…” DC’s Troy Perkins On whether or not Chicago was the better team.

He attributed the early ineffectiveness to impatience, “A false sense that you have to go get the goal. What you need to do is you need to win the game on the field. You need to earn the right to get forward….You have to unlock a defense that sits in like that and you do that with your movement.”

He was nonplussed as to why the team had not executed the practice plan, “Maybe it’s youthful exuberance. It’s impatience…If you don’t see the pass, turn around, play it back, let’s go to the other side.” The veteran sounded like the Bruce Arena practice sessions of United’s early days, describing a style that has been the team’s hallmark throughout its existence.

This season – despite winning the Supporters’ Shield for the second consecutive season – DC United has occasionally drifted away from its roots. The first half of this game demonstrated the inevitable consequence of that sort of lapse.

United will have a short winter break to consider the changes needed for next year, as their Supporters’ Shield win once again puts them in early international competition.

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Scoring Summary:

	1	2	F
DC United	0	2	2
Chicago	2	0	2

CHI — Chad Barrett 1 (Calen Carr 1) 31
CHI — Chris Rolfe 2 (Cuauhtemoc Blanco 1, Calen Carr 2) 33
DCU — Clyde Simms 1 (Rod Dyachenko 1, Christian Gomez 1) 69
DCU — Christian Gomez 1 (Rod Dyachenko 2) 74

Chicago Fire — Matt Pickens, C.J. Brown, Gonzalo Segares, Dasan Robinson, Chris Rolfe, Chris Armas, Cuauhtemoc Blanco (Floyd Franks 88), Logan Pause, Wilman Conde, Chad Barrett (Bakary Soumare 58), Calen Carr (Diego Gutierrez 78),
Substitutes Not Used: Mike Banner, Jon Busch, Bruno Menezes, Paulo Wanchope

D.C. United – Troy Perkins, Bryan Namoff, Bobby Boswell (Devon McTavish 59), Greg Vanney, Marc Burch (Rod Dyachenko 41), Ben Olsen, Christian Gomez, Clyde Simms, Fred, Luciano Emilio (Nicholas Addlery 65), Jaime Moreno,
Substitutes Not Used: Brian Carroll, Guy-Roland Kpene, Domenic Mediate, Jay Nolly

Statistic summaries DC United CHICAGO Shots 13 (Christian Gomez 3) 10 (Chris Rolfe 3) Shots on Goal 5 (Luciano Emilio 2) 3 (3 tied with 1) Saves 1 (Troy Perkins 1) 3 (Matt Pickens 3) Fouls 13 (Fred 3) 15 (Dasan Robinson 4) Offside 4 (Ben Olsen 2) 1 (Cuauhtemoc Blanco 1) Corner kicks 13 (Greg Vanney 5) 1 (Cuauhtemoc Blanco 1)

Misconduct Summary:
CHI — Gonzalo Segares (caution; Reckless Foul) 54
DCU — Devon McTavish (caution; Reckless Foul) 61
DCU — Troy Perkins (caution; Reckless Foul) 63
CHI — Matt Pickens (caution; Delaying a Restart) 93+
DCU — Rod Dyachenko (ejection; Serious Foul Play) 94+

Referee: Jair Marrufo
Referee’s Assistants: Fabio Tovar; Thomas Supple
4th official: Alex Prus
Time of game: 1:55
Attendance: 19,438
Weather: Partly Cloudy, 61 degrees

Steve Long can be reached at slong@americansoccernews.net.
© Long/Cyber Soccer Associates, LLC 2007