Houston and Vancouver battle to scoreless draw in MLS action

Photo by Darla Tamulitis
La Vita Loca Photography
Copyright 2016
All Rights Reserved.

HOUSTON, TEXAS (July 23, 2016) After battling for 90-plus minutes, the Houston Dynamo and the Vancouver Whitecaps FC battled to a scoreless draw in front of 16,465 fans at BBVA Compass Stadium in Houston on Saturday, July 23, 2016. With the draw, the Dynamo move to 4-9-7 (19 points) in 2016 while the Whitecaps post an 8-8-6 (30 points) record.

Both teams used a strong and stingy defense in the match which saw 26 shots (17 for Houston, 9 for Vancouver) with four shots on target for both teams. The Dynamo extended their home shutout streak to 491 minutes and have not conceded a goal at BBVA Compass Stadium under interim head coach, Wade Barrett.

When questioned in the post-game press conference about if there is anything in particular the team can work on to help their recent scoring issues, Barrett responded.

“You got to keep working at it. There’s no easy answer to it. Teams go through periods like this. There are other teams in the league that have gone through the same thing, where they’re having a hard time scoring. We just kind of can’t seem to find the back of the net. But again, Will (Bruin) makes a great near post run. Makes a great chance on the ball and (Vancouver GK David) Ousted pulls it out of the top corner. Boniek (García) makes a great run across. Great shot! Goes off the inside of the post and comes back out. It just kind of seems like a couple things aren’t going our way. We had a couple good looks from the top of the box that we put off target. Will had a great chance with his right foot. We’re just a little bit off on the set pieces. Especially even when Chaco came in, he serves in a really, really dangerous ball. So we maybe have missed a couple chances there, but there’s no magic pill. Believe me, if there were then we’d have an order of them in already. We’ll just keep working at it.”

Next up for the Dynamo will be a  Sunday, July 31 matchup against the San Jose Earthquakes at 7:15 p.m. CDT. Houston fell 3-1 at San Jose on May 11 and will be looking to even the season series against former manager Dominic Kinnear.