Houston Dynamo FC falls to Charlotte FC 2-1

Photo to Darla S Tamulitis, La Vita Loca Photography, Copyright 2022 All Rights Reserved

By Robert H Kelly
Copyright 2022 All Rights Reserved

HOUSTON, TEXAS (Sunday, July 3, 2022) When ask in the post-game press conference if there was any positives he could take from the Houston Dynamo FC 2-1 loss to Charlotte FC, Dynamo head coach Paulo Nagamura responded; and was very blunt with his answer.

“Positives—not many to be honest with you. I think one of the things that we have been praising that we need to be better is consistency and when you play two games like you play against Chicago and Portland, that in my opinion was two good games, even though we didn’t get a result in Portland and you come today with that kind of performance – that worries me. That’s something that we need to work on, our consistency and especially playing at home. I have been talking and I been saying this many times; we need to be more dominant. In the game today one thing that we take away is that our giveaways will affect our game especially at home and I think today it did big time.”

Houston started the game like they intended to control the game from the very first minute. In the first half, Houston trailed 1-0, on an own goal in the 28th minute by Dynamo midfielder Matias Vera. They led on shots (9-7) and corner kicks (4-1). and ended the first half trailing by one. Nagamura added to his comments when questioned about the own goal.

"Every time you go down 1-0, you know that team is going to wait for it and counter. To be honest, I think both goals are very soft goals by us. We could have done much better than we did on both goals and again it was just a bad day overall for us.”

Photo by Darla S Tamulitis, La Vita Loca Photography, Copyright 2022 All Rights Reserved

In the second half, the Dynamo lost focus and could not find the focus and aggressiveness shown in the first 45 minutes. Charlotte added to its lead in the 74th minute when forward Andre Shinyashiki came off the bench and punched one past Houston goalkeeper Steve Clark straight from the top of the box. Seven minutes later, the Dynamo were able to get on the scoreboard when forward Fafa Picault (shown above) also came off the bench to score and prevent Houston from being shut out.

Houston captain Tim Parker also express his lack of satisfaction in the Dyanmo's performance when questioned by the press.

“It was disappointing. When teams come down to Houston, especially with the crowd we had tonight and the fans which we haven’t seen in a while - it is disappointing to obviously not get the three points, but also not play as well as we thought we were going to.” 

The Dynamo will play their next two matches against in-state rivals. They will first face FC Dallas on Saturday, July 9 at PNC Stadium. Three days later, they travel to Q2 Stadium to face Austin FC.

With the loss, Houston drops to 6-3-9 (W-D-L) with 16 games remaining in the season.