November 3rd, 2007 . 7:45 am . By: Buzz Carrick

True love is hard to find. Sometimes you think you have true love, and then you catch the early flight home from San Diego and a couple of nude people jump out of your bathroom blindfolded like a goddamn magic show ready to double team your girlfriend… – Mitch Martin

That was one of the most strangest games I have ever witnessed. No one could have made that game up, you just wouldn’t believe it.

When did Houston start playing their home games in Bizarro land?  Goodson sick, Yi starts.  Ricchetti out, and Morrow goes to the $800k bust.  Kinnear starts Jaqua and Ching, making his front line one dimensional and playing into FCD’s hands.  Sala hurt in the first two seconds on a simple push over the bar play, proceeds to make 5 game savers off the line, and is subbed out for Burse.  Burse comes in and plays some great ball.  Gbandi plays like they stuck me in his uniform in the first half, then has a fantastic second half.  After having only two yellow cards all year, Alvarez loses his mind and sees the red mist.  Cooper has six touches to start the game, four of them went to the other tam, one was the knock down for the goal. 

Like I said, Bizarro land.

 FC Dallas 1, Houston 4
(Houston advances 4-2 on aggregate)

El Bueno (The Good)

Strong display by Alex Yi, who apparently found out he would start two hours to the game.  It can be hard to get mentally ready to play on that short notice, and his performance, while not flawless, was still pretty strong.  Yi, when healthy, has shown he’s good enough to start for a MLS team.  One wonders if to be fair to him he might need a change of scenery this winter.  Then again it’s real nice having a player who can start available on the bench

We’ve dealt with injuries all season.  We’ve been able to cope with it and move on when we have to deal with adversity. I think we dealt with it fine. – Steve Morrow

Bobby Rhine was Man of the Match for me.  He wasn’t beaten on the defensive end I saw, and he contributed loads going forward. Bobby fought, clawed, and battled… and yet was composed and sharp.  If that kind of performance could have been had all year perhaps things would be different (let’s not forget that Rhine did have some bad ones early in the year).  Heck of a game by Bobby Rhine.

We saw another real nice performance by Adrian Serioux, until Holden Charlie horsed him out of the game.  Serioux has impressive range and was doing a great job on De Rosario. There is an occasional tendency on Serioux’s part to ball watch in the box, but I only noticed it twice in this game.  Serioux was tough in midfield, giving FCD some real bite.

Given how good Pablo Ricchetti was when he came in, one can’t help but wonder if he could have gone all game.  Ricchetti got a pain killing shot before the half to try and play, so he probably couldn’t have done it with the 100 minute of normal time and 30+ of extra time.  Even if he had made the entire game, he likely would have been broken down for the next round if FCD would have won.  Ricchetti showed his range and ability to tackle and you could really see how much he was missed.

Credit to Houston, that was fantastic atmosphere in the stands.  One wonders why Dallas gets a crowd of suburbanites that sit on their hands most of the game?  Could it be that the stadium is 40 miles from town?  Props to all the Dallas fans who bused down.  You could hear them on TV and they added to the whole thing.  Well done fellows, wish we could clone you.  PHP is fantastic, but when I win $200 mil I’m putting a stadium downtown.

I think we want to play against Kansas City so we can play at home. The crowd that we played in front of tonight was unbelievable and it was probably the best atmosphere I’ve ever played in in the MLS. We’d like to play at home, but then again it doesn’t really matter who we play because we’re going to come out and play hard and try to get to the finals. – Brian Ching

In a game with  40 fouls and 12 cards this may sound strange, but I actually thought the referee, Baldomero Toledo, did a pretty good job.  Did he miss some stuff? Sure, no one is flawless. I am sure there were a few fouls gotten wrong, or a few calls too hard.  But for a game with that kind of intensity, gamesmanship, crowd, and dirty play, he kept himself in check and right up until the very end, the players in check too.  That was one that easily could have gotten way out of hand.

Boy howdy that Eddie Robinson is a hell of a defender.  He’s tough as heck, fouls a ton, and never thinks he did it.  But man do I admire his game, leadership, and tactical understanding.  He keeps the entire back four of Houston in line and working.  FCD is desperate for a defender like him in the back.

I liked the change part way through the first half when Denilson went central and Toja wide left.  Both players looked better as Toja can go both way, Denilson really can only defend, which he at least was trying to do, or play offense.  So good change to try free Denilson up.  It was working right up until minute 47.

Despite the injury, the previous game showed Dario Sala can still get it done.  Burse has shown this season he’s got real talent.  What a benefit it is to have two keepers who can get it done.  Complements to Ray Burse for coming off the bench and making some big saves.  Keeper more than any position it’s hard as heck to come in at top form.  I’m even more impressed with ray having seen him in that circumstance in that atmosphere and still pull it off.

It’s not even about years previous. Tonight is very hard. Everyone put in 110 percent, things just didn’t go our way. It’s really frustrating. – Ray Burse

El Camino Central (Middle of the Road)

I wrote two weeks ago that Ruiz has had a sub par season and needed to carry FCD deep into the playoffs to make him worth $400k.  Obviously with FCD eliminated that didn’t happen.  But I will give Ruiz credit for this game.  If he played all season with the heart and effort I saw tonight he would have scored a ton of goals and FCD would have finished much higher.  His goal was a pure class finish as well, very few players have that kind of one touch ability.  Then again Ruiz could have iced the game when he was alone into the box.  He should have won the game, instead he went down and didn’t get the OK call.  And I’m not about to claim he was fouled.  That missed chance is typical of Ruiz’s entire season.

What can you say about the gamesmanship in this one.  Not much frankly.  If you don’t think it was going both ways you are biased toward your team.  Let’s just move on from the name calling.  Point I would like to make has to do with MLS players in general, and US players specifically, needing to learn how to handle this kind of thing.  The inability of MLS teams, and perhaps the US team, to deal with gamesmanship is one reason why they fare poorly against certain teams from the south.  Getting angry and retaliating (which came form both teams in this one) is how you get red cards and thus lose games.

Of course, I mean every game against Dallas is like that, you know? And I think there were some missed calls and they were maybe a little bit quick with the yellow cards on the evening which I think contributed to it but I think we knew that was the way it was going to be. – Eddie Robinson

The difference between Ngwenya (who is effective and dangerous) and Oduro (who is often not) is mental (read “tactics”).  Ngwenya knows when and where to make his runs, the timing of which is just as important as the location.  Coming from deep, moving all over the line, and timing the runs with knock-ons, are all a part of getting it right.  Oduro does not, so his runs are ineffective and rarely result in danger.

No Tan Bueno (It’s Not Good)

I would have liked to have seen Dax McCarty start over Denilson.  Reason #1 is my “don’t-change-two-players” theory.  Dax in for Ricchetti is one change, moving Toja central and playing Denilson is two.  Reason #2, Dax is young yes, but he’s the leading assist man on this team.  His free kicks and corners are much better than anyone else’s, and he can play in possession better than Denilson at this point.  Which should tell us something about Denilson’s future don’t you think?

The Houston catch up strategy was simple, loft into Ching for the head on to Ngwenya and De Rosario making runs on either side.  It’s a very basic idea and after the first 20 attempts FCD should have been able to make a simple adjustment to solve it.  Either drop the line off Ching when the ball comes in (except for his marker) and cover the run, or man mark the two slashing players and deal with it.  Far too often they were untracked (first goal) or if tracked left two players open behind (second goal).

Forget any talk about the offside call (which was correct), the game was lost on Alvarez’s Red Card.  Let’s not dwell on that too much, but let me say that it doesn’t matter what Davis said or did.  Yes they were jawing, yes there was pushing, it doesn’t matter. The minute the knee comes up, Alvarez is gone.  End of story.  And End of the FCD season.

I told the guys at halftime, you know, we’re down two goals and we need to go out there and get after it and hopefully some luck will shine on us. Fortunately for us a Dallas player lost his head and made it 11 on 10 and we knew we had to go for it right then. The guys kept their heads well because we had a long game and we got fouled a lot. – Dominic Kinnear

Is Dallas cursed? I’m beginning to think so.  Red cards and playoff losses seem to be on the offer every year.  In all their history FCD seems to shoot themselves in the foot when they have winnable playoff series. 

Categories: 120 Fahrenheit.

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