Houston falls to Dallas in quarterfinals of Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup

Photo by Jeremy Fletcher of Bigshots Snapshots Media Group
Used with permission.

By Robert H Kelly

Copyright 2016 TexSport Publications

HOUSTON, TEXAS (July 21, 2016) Battling for 90 minutes without the ball finding the back of the net, midfielder Fabian Castillo found the ball loose at the top of the penalty area; skillfully maneuvering the ball past the Houston Dynamo defense and aptly scored to give FC Dallas a 1-0 win in the quarterfinal of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup. The match, which was contested at Houston’s BBVA Compass Stadium on Wednesday, July 20, 2016.

After nearly 90 minutes of play, neither team could find a way to get the ball into the goal. It was not through lack of trying. In fact, but teams moved the ball down the field with precision. However, most of the time the advances were met with a stingy defense that seemed to be in the right place at the right time. With the win, Dallas advances to the semifinal match in the tournament; its eighth in club history.

Dynamo interim head coach Wade Barrett talked about the game in the post-game press conference.

“I thought the first half was even. They are very good at what they do, they caused a couple of problems with us picking up the ball in space and dropping in some balls behind the defense. I thought we could have done a better job preventing that. The first half was pretty even, back and forth. We talked a lot about how we wanted to address the second half. I thought we did that, I thought we looked like the team that was going to come out and get a goal. I thought we had a little bit better movement of the ball in the attacking areas, Mauro [Manotas] hit one off the post that I thought the keeper got a touch to, I thought it was a good save. We had some dangerous looks going forward, Andrew [Wenger] caused a lot of problems. I felt like we were the team that was in charge in the second half, I felt like we were the team pushing for a goal. We talked – those water breaks were a little frustrating but we had an opportunity to talk to the group and we just talked about the fact that even though we were on top of the game we had to be careful about the counter, you have to be attentive to every single play on the field and make sure that we didn’t give anything away. It’s a tough way for the game to finish out.”

Next up for the Dynamo will be a Saturday, July 23 game against Vancouver Whitecaps FC.