Houston Dynamo drop heartbreaker to New York City FC, 2-0

David Villa (7) scored both of New York's goals
against the Houston Dynamo.
Photo by Darla Tamulitis, La Vita Loca Photography
Copyright 2016, All Rights Reserved

By Robert H Kelly
Copyright 2016 TexSport Publications

HOUSTON, TEXAS (September 30, 2016) In a must-win game, with the MLS regular season winding down, the Houston Dynamo could not find the offensive punch to get the ball into the net, and dropped a 2-0 decision to New York City FC at BBVA Compass Stadium in Houston on Friday, September 30, 2016.  The match was the first meeting between the two teams. The loss drops Houston to 7-12-11 (32 points) for the season with four games remaining on their schedule. New York, on the other hand, goes to 14-9-9 (51 points) and jumped into first place in the Eastern Conference. Houston remains in the cellar Western Conference; nine points back from a possible playoff berth. Mathematically, the Dynamo remain in the hunt for the playoffs, but with the loss to New York, their chanced diminished significantly. 

After a uneventful first half, which saw multiple turnovers from both team, Houston and New York headed to the locker rooms without a score to their credit. New York got on the scoreboard in the 52nd minute when captain David Villa received a corner kick on the ground and turned to the endline. He connected with the ball, and from a tough angle, drilled it past Houston goalkeeper Joe Willis. In the final 38 minutes, Houston continued to play give-and-take ball, but still found the back of the net elusive. New York added an insurance goal in added time of the second half when Tony Taylor found Villa at the box of the box for the final score.

Houston interim head coach Wade Barrett discussed the loss with the press after the game.

“It was a tough one for us. I think we, everybody in our group, could have done better tonight. They’re a good opponent, they do a few things different, things that weren’t a surprise to us but we still didn’t deal with them as well as I had hoped that we would. I hoped we’d have been a little more on the front foot as well, I thought we were still just a little bit off with our passing. Field doesn’t help but both teams are out there. We didn’t take care of the ball very well. You know, we were just off tonight. It’s hard to explain, we had a good week of training. It felt like, coming into the game, the guys were pretty confident. For whatever reason, we were kind of flat tonight, in a lot of different ways. I feel like we all kind of got knocked down tonight, myself included, and now we have the weekend. We have the weekend to think about it, to think about how we’re going to come back, what our response is going to be, when we come back in on Monday. We’ll come back in with a little bit of renewed attitude, a little bit of renewed vigor, and we’ll be back to fighting on Monday.”

On October 8, Houston will host the Chicago Fire before hitting the road to play Seattle on October 12. They return to the confines of  BBVA Compass Stadium on October 16 to face Los Angeles. The Dynamo will close out the regular season against Colorado at Dick's Sporting Goods Park in Denver.