HOUSTON — For a team accustomed to pulling games out late, Saturday afternoon’s 1-1 draw was a bit of a letdown for the Houston Dynamo.
After all, the 3rd-place Dynamo saw two stoppage-time chances from Brad Davis and Calen Carr just miss the target. The near-misses were a good representation of a game in which the Dynamo just couldn’t find a winner.
WATCH HIGHLIGHTS: Houston 1, Chicago 1
“We put ourselves in some great spots in the final third and it was one of those days where our crosses were off enough, our shots were off enough and it led to a bit of a frustrating afternoon,” said Houston head man Dominic Kinnear after the game.
The best and most frustrating chance came in the 36th minute, when Carlo Costly missed from inside the six yard box. Costly, who played an effective 60 minutes, made a darting run through the box and latched Luiz Camargo’s low cross just three minutes after Colin Clark gave the Dynamo a lead. Yet at the moment of truth, Costly blew his shot high.
“It would’ve been two goals in five minutes, but it was a missed opportunity,” Kinnear said. “If we score the second, you never know, but the possibility of us winning this game would have been good.
“We’re not trying to miss … As they commonly say, the last 20 or 30 yards today we were off. As everyone knows, the hardest thing to do is score, but we had our chances to finish with another goal.”
In short, all those chances missed added up to Kinnear's “frustrating afternoon," as the side missed a good opportunity to solidify their playoff chances.
“I think at times we lacked a little bit of movement off the ball and became a little bit predictable,” said Brian Ching. “We did a little bit better in the second half, especially at the end of the game when we were pushing for the points. Unfortunately, we didn’t play well enough in the final pass, the final shot, today.”
Darrell Lovell covers the Houston Dynamo for MLSsoccer.com. Follow him on twitter at @Dynamoexaminer.
