Houston comes from behind to down San Jose Earthquakes

Photo by Darla Tamulitis, La Vita Loca Photography
Copyright 2018 All Rights Reserved

By Robert H Kelly
Copyright 2018 All Rights Reserved

HOUSTON, TEXAS (October 29, 2018) Trailing 2-0 at halftime, the Houston Dynamo scored three unanswered points in the second half to down the San Jose Earthquakes by the score of 3-2 at BBVA Compass Stadium in Houston on Saturday evening. The win improved Houston's record to 9-13-8 on the season and improved their record against San Jose to 12-8-3 overall ad 8-2-1 in Houston.

The come-from-behind win, after being down 0-2, was the first time in club history. It was the fourth time in team history that they came back from a two-goal deficit to earn a positive result and the second time this season. They rallied from down 0-2 to tie Los Angeles FC 2-2 on July 3, 2018.

Forward Mauro Manotas established a new club single-season scoring record with his 15th of the year when he scored on a right-footed blast in the 57th minute. Midfielder Tomás Martínez scored his fifth goal of the season when he hit the back of the net to equalize the match in the 68th minute. Forward Romell Quioto scored his fifth goal of the season when he tapped home the game-winning goal in the 87th minute. It was his third career game-winning goal for the Dynamo and his first of this season. He stared after the game:

“I am very happy that we won and this was a game that was almost out of reach. I’m glad that I scored and was able to help this team. I want to acknowledge Mauro’s (Manotas) effort and he knew he could find me inside the box and he found did. I was there ready to score and glory to God I scored.”

With four games to play in the regular season, Dynamo head coach Wilmer Cabrera was stated in the post-game press conference.

“Yes, we didn’t start slow. We started off good with the ball and moving the ball, but we weren’t as dangerous as usual. We made two changes up front— (FW) Memo (Rodriguez) and (FW) Ronaldo (Pena). I have to sacrifice Ronaldo and I put him on the right. He has played on the right side but he’s more comfortable in the center, but it wasn’t that we were playing bad the only thing is we made two mistakes, two mistakes and they capitalized on those two mistakes. So, at halftime I came over and we made the decision to change a little bit to give us energy and to move forward - be more dangerous and throughout the 45 minutes it paid off for us and coming from 2-0 to win the game 3-2 is very rewarding for a team who just played three days ago. We had to perform well. So, that shows that we have, we have that fire in us. The players were suffering at halftime down 2-0. It wasn’t good. It wasn’t good. So, they reacted well and I’m happy, I’m proud of their reactions, of their desire to come back and despite that we won, we scored three goals in the second half – the mentality, the intensity and the passion were how the guys came in, it was very good. I was pleased with that change of attitude and at the end the guys are right now, their confident and we enjoyed the outcome and we could reward the fans that came tonight and give them three more points and we’re still fighting for the playoffs.”

The Dynamo will travel Seattle on Monday, October 8 to face the Sounders.