It wasn't the sort of homecoming the Houston Dynamo were expecting. Back in the place where many in the club had called home until following the 2006 season, the Dynamo lost 2-1 to the San Jose Earthquakes on Thursday night at Buck Shaw Stadium.
"I don't think we had a good game tonight. We were sluggish in the first half, a little hesitant going for the first and second balls. And when we got the ball we weren't clearing our lines quickly enough," Dynamo coach Dominic Kinnear said. "Even in the second half we really didn't start pushing forward until the 70th minute or so. We made some mistakes and they punished us."
With seven of Houston's starting 11 having strong ties to the Earthquakes, there was a great deal of talk about the Dynamo's first regular season game in San Jose as the start of a new rivalry of sorts. But Kinnear said that wasn't an excuse for his team's performance.
"There will always be a buildup with us coming out here (to San Jose), questions about us returning, but I don't think it was a distraction in any way to our preparation," he said.
The Dynamo came into the game riding two consecutive wins and would have climbed atop the MLS Western Conference with a win. But second half goals from San Jose's Kei Kamara and Ivan Guerrero gave the Earthquakes an insurmountable lead, although Brian Ching answered back with a late goal.
"We were bad tonight," defender Eddie Robinson said. "We've got to be sharper, and we've got to have a little more pride. We were pathetic tonight."
The first goal came just after Robinson left the field with an injury in the 64th minute.
"I got a hip pointer or something," he said. "It's just a knock. I went for a ball and Ryan Johnson just caught me with an elbow. I was waiting for the pain to go away to subside and it never did, so I had a hard time standing up straight."
Two minutes later, a flick-on from Ned Grabavoy found Kei Kamara in the box with his back to the net. Kamara trapped the ball, turned and shot quickly, beating Pat Onstad cleanly.
"Anytime you lose Eddie, you're losing a good player, a good guy in the air," Kinnear said. "On that play, there was a little too much room when the ball fell. We were a little bit hesitant in going for the ball, and that hesitancy cost us."
In the 81st minute, San Jose doubled their lead. Onstad made a diving save on a Ryan Johnson shot, but the rebound fell to an onrushing Ivan Guerrero who slammed it home.
Houston mounted a comeback, and got the goal from Ching in the 88th minute.
"I think we decided to start playing after it was 2-0," Kinnear said. "That's when we started feeling a sense of urgency."
Ching turned home a Brad Davis cross from the right, volleying it inside the near post. But Ching said it was a recipe that could have led to earlier success.
"We play best when we get balls wide and put them in the box, and unfortunately we didn't start doing that until we were down 2-0," Ching said. "We were out of our rhythm tonight. We didn't come to play, and we got punished for it."
Ching almost scored an equalizer in injury time, but his header from 15 yards out went just wide.
"I'm not going to say it was a for sure goal, but I think I could've done better with that," Ching said of that chance. "I just missed the post by about a foot. If I put a little more into it I probably would have put it in the side netting."
"We'll have to look at the tape and see what we did wrong," Dwayne De Rosario said. "The way we started, the first half, was just not the way we usually go about things. We didn't get stuck into tackles and we didn't move the ball around sharply, and it was like we were being too nice. We need to let the past be the past and anytime we come here we need to focus on doing one thing: work hard and get your tackles and get a result."
Before the game, the pregame introductions of the Dynamo players were met with some cheers, some boos. But Kinnear was bothered by the reception of the men in orange during the game.
"The one thing I can say is that I was pretty surprised at some of the things that were said to the players and the staff (by the San Jose fans)," Kinnear said. "A lot of these guys put a lot of effort to put those stars on (the Earthquakes') jerseys. Anywhere around the world, when players have had good careers, at other places when they come back, they get a good reception. I understand rooting for your team, I totally agree with that, but some of the things that were said, really kind of caught me by surprise.
"I'm disappointed. And I think the guys should feel slighted by the way they were treated. The time that they spent here really made (the Earthquakes) franchise a super success in the early 2000s," Kinnear continued. "The players didn't ask to leave. The players had nothing to do with it. I understand you have to vent your frustrations somewhere, but to vent it at the players that were here and won championships and went out in the community and made friends, I think it's really disappointing and very, very unfair."
Pete Ratajczak is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
