SANDY, Utah – For a team that hasn’t found a result on the road yet this season, the Houston Dynamo weren’t too far from finding at least one point on Saturday.
Boniek Garcia trying to be overly clever, along with what Houston head coach Owen Coyle called the “save of the season already” by Nick Rimando, resulted in the Dynamo giving up a 1-0 lead and falling 2-1 on Saturday night to Real Salt Lake.
“We have shot ourselves in the foot,” Coyle said. “We have handed a very good team goals and that's the breaks we're not getting at the moment.”
Leonel Miranda gave Houston a 1-0 lead in the 54th minute as he pushed the ball past Rimando at the near post from the corner of the penalty area. That lead became the fourth this season Houston have relinquished in the second half.
Eight minutes later a short corner played by RSL didn’t find any openings, but the clearance from Sheanon Williams only made it as far as Garcia at the top of the box.
“[Garcia] tried to dribble on the edge of his own box and he shouldn't have,” Coyle said. “That's not something we encourage. It's an individual error the lad made and we got punished from it.”
RSL center back Justen Glad came away with the ball and immediately found Jordan Allen in stride for the equalizer.
Even after RSL went up 2-1, Coyle felt the Dynamo did what they needed to come away with a draw.
In the 80th minute, Miranda just missed his second goal of the night when his shot hit off the inside of the far post after a Rimando save. The ball ricocheted to Andrew Wenger with Rimando still lying on the ground. The keeper managed to get off the ground just enough for Wenger’s shot to deflect off his face for a corner kick.
“Even at 2-1, we were the team pushing on to get the equalizer,” Coyle said. “Wenger should bury it, but at least he's there to take the chance and Nick Rimando probably already has the save of the season.
“Of course we feel a little hard done by it not to leave with anything, We know that if we continue to perform and cut out the individual mistakes then there's no doubt we're capable of winning three or four games back-to-back, and that's what we need to start doing because we're playing catch-up every week now.”
