What a difference a week makes. And that's not even considering about how well the Houston Dynamo played last Saturday in what was yet another "most important game of the year."
One week after beating the Colorado Rapids 2-1 on a beautiful night in Houston, the Dynamo flew north to Chicago and did the same thing to the Chicago Fire.
Only this time, instead of playing in a nice breeze following a gorgeous afternoon, the Dynamo won a match in a cold and driving rain.
"That's soccer in America for you," said Dynamo head coach Dominic Kinnear. "Sometimes you play on turf or you have to deal with altitude. You have to play in all kinds of weather, especially early in the season. But to be honest, I thought the surface tonight was perfect."
Perfect? That is quite the compliment for the Toyota Park grounds crew, who did a marvelous job getting the field ready for battle on a night filled with rain showers, wind and cool air.
To the casual observer, Chicago was no place to be for a professional sporting event. But Kinnear said conditions were just right for his team and its style of play.
"I like the rain because it makes the ball move quicker," Kinnear added. "The guys passed the ball quicker in those conditions. We were trying to get the ball in behind (defender Gonzalo) Segares and it was skipping a little bit."
Skipping might have been an understatement at times, but the Dynamo scored the first goal of the game when Dwayne De Rosario deflected a shot by Ricardo Clark into the net in the 17th minute.
The rain intensified in the second half, and the Fire tied the game.
But Bobby Boswell and his tall frame was in the right place at the right time in the closing minutes. A perfect deadball cross by Richard Mulrooney was headed into the net in the 82nd minute and Houston's second win of the year was all but complete.
"I wasn't planning that at all, just a spur of the moment kind of thing," Boswell said after practice Tuesday. "It was just a really big goal and the field was wet so I did it."
Maybe the rain helped the Dynamo get the bounce they needed against a Fire team that, coming into the game, had outscored the opposition 13-3. Either way, Clark said, the team's confidence is building ahead of the team's first match in San Jose since the club left that northern California city before the 2006 season.
"The past couple of games, we've been playing really well," said Clark. "A couple of games this year, we've played well and haven't gotten the result. I think our good play is starting to pay off. The bounces are starting to go our way -- literally.
"We never get too high or too low," Clark continued. "I feel that if we're playing well, that's the most important thing. The results are going to come eventually and the goals are going to come eventually. Our confidence is good right now. Hopefully that'll carry us through the next couple of games."
Andrew J. Ferraro is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
