Sunday night, Houston Dynamo made history. But despite extending their unbeaten streak to 10 games and setting the MLS shutout record, the mood in the defending MLS Cup champions locker room was one of frustration and disappointment after playing to a scoreless tie with Toronto FC.
"We're at home. We want to win," said Dynamo goalkeeper Pat Onstad. "We don't want to tie, especially against 10 men for 55 minutes. I think that's the disappointing part. If it would have been 11-on-11, you live with it, but the fact that we were against 10 men, and we could only get one point out of it is disappointing.
"We created opportunities, but they wouldn't go in for us. On another night, maybe two or three go in. Tonight just wasn't our night."
Houston had plenty of opportunities to score, outshooting Toronto 16-4, but none of those shots could find the back of the net. Perhaps Houston's best chance came in the 32nd minute when Brian Ching's shot from the left side of the area hit the left post and came back out.
The Orange had plenty of more chances, but shot after shot and header after header went high or wide. Toronto FC's goalkeeper Srdjan Djekanovic only made four saves on the night.
"It's a frustrating game. We had a lot chances, obviously," said Dynamo midfielder Ricardo Clark. "I thought we did the job. There's not much more you can say. It's just a frustrating game. At the end of the day, we had some chances, but we couldn't finish and that hurt us. It's a hard tie. It kind of feels like a loss."
What made things worse for the Orange was that they played most of the game with a man advantage after Maurice Edu was shown a red card for elbowing Houston's Brian Mullan in the face in the 42nd minute.
Earning just a tie after being a man up more than half the game made the shutout record bittersweet.
"That's something. You will always remember this as one of the best defenses in team history at least until it's broken," said Dynamo defender Eddie Robinson. "I think it's been like seven years since that record was set. Even if it takes another seven or 10 (to break it). But, who knows? Maybe we aren't done yet. We just want to keep that streak going.
"It's bittersweet. We want to win every game. This is a hungry team. Guys are disappointed that we didn't win tonight, but that's the kind of attitude you like to see. Your teammates want to do better and they know they can do better. We wanted three points, but we didn't. We just need to keep plugging along, and we will be all right come playoffs."
Onstad, who has earned five consecutive shutouts, said the record was earned by the team as a whole.
"It is a team record. I always thought goals against is a team statistic," Onstad said. "As I've said before, it starts with our front two. When they put pressure on the ball, it makes the other team's job very difficult. I think the guys follow suit when those two guys are working hard."
For Dynamo head coach Dominic Kinnear, the win was what he wanted.
"The scoreless streak is great, but we want to win games," Kinnear said. "If we finish one of our chances, that's the name of the game. I think tonight we created some chances to score, but if we don't score, we are keeping them in the game, and they can sit in and pack it in and pack it in. If we scored, they would have had to open up a little and it would have made our lives a little easier.
"Our lack of finishing tonight cost us a few points. I told the guys over the last 10 games, we have eight wins and two draws, but we're disappointed because we didn't win the game and the guys are hungry."
If the Dynamo can take anything out of Sunday's game, it's that they got a reminder they are beatable. Toronto played a physical match, but Dynamo knew how TFC was going to come at them.
"We knew that was the way it was going to be coming in," Robinson said. "That was the way it was when we played them. They try to sit back and disrupt the game with the fouls. They were trying to get a point. You have to give them credit because they got what they came for. We're just real disappointed that we didn't get the 'W'. We need a little reminder every now and then that we can't get the win every time."
Jeremy Rakes is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
