It was a warm night in south Texas, but it didn't take long for the New England Revolution to cool off the surging Houston Dynamo in a match featuring two first-place teams on MLS Primetime Thursday.
In a second rematch of the last two MLS Cup Finalists, it was the Revs, again, who followed up their opening day win against the Dynamo with another commanding performance.
New England scored early -- getting goals from Steve Ralston and Kheli Dube in the eighth and 35th minutes, respectively -- and that was all goalkeeper Matt Reis would need for the 2-0 win in front of a disappointed Robertson Stadium.
The Dynamo fell back to .500 on the season, with two of the losses coming against the team it beat last November at RFK Stadium in Washington for a second consecutive league title.
But the Revs have manhandled the punchless Dynamo 5-0 on the year and Houston certainly has to be glad they won't have to see them again during the regular season.
Dynamo head coach Dominic Kinnear said he was disappointed with the loss and added that he was not happy with how the team defended the two plays that led to first-half goals for the Revolution.
"I think it's disappointing anytime you lose, especially when with the goals we gave up tonight and them being soft," Kinnear said. "And they scored when we didn't defend particularly well. Other than those two instances, I thought we were OK. We didn't create tons of chances tonight, but we got some good looks at the goal."
Even without regulars Brian Ching, Dwayne De Rosario and Pat Onstad, who were all out of the lineup on international duty, the Dynamo did create enough offense to give themselves a chance in the opening half.
But despite peppering Reis with several good shots before the first 45 minutes were in the books, they weren't able to sustain the pressure.
"At halftime, I told them that they are expecting us to come out and sock it to them, so let's not disappoint them," Kinnear said. "But we did not have as many chances in the second half as we did in the last 15 minutes of the first half."
By that point, the Dynamo were already in a hole. Patrick Ianni misplayed a throw-in that led to Ralston's goal and Geoff Cameron didn't appear to be ready for a Corey Ashe pass that could have been an easy equalizer in the 26th minute.
Although he refrained from naming names, veteran defender Craig Waibel said the team needs a better effort from its young players when they are thrust into critical situations.
"It wasn't terrible soccer defensively, but you could definitely tell that we were missing a few games offensively," said Waibel. "It was just patchwork out there, and there were some young guys that came in tonight that didn't play their best football.
"That being said, when we get in a situation like this, where a few guys get called up for international play, they need to be ready. This is going to continue. Guys are going to keep getting called up and we will need our young guys to not only come in, but they have got to come in and play their best football. I wouldn't pin (the loss) on just one or two guys, but we struggled at a few positions tonight."
In the 80th minute, the Dynamo received a gift when referee Mark Geiger awarded a penalty kick when it appeared Michael Parkhurst took down Franco Caraccio just inside the penalty area.
Stuart Holden stepped up to take the resulting penalty and was stuffed by Reis, who dove to his right to complete a completely fruitless night for the frustrated Dynamo.
"A couple of mental mistakes really killed us tonight," Holden said. "I don't think we were awful, but I don't think we were all that good. We were average. It's not that we didn't create any chances, but when we did, we couldn't score, we couldn't put it away. And those are the things that really ended up hurting us in the end."
Andrew J. Ferraro is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
