For about an hour, the Houston Dynamo felt they were in control against New York City FC in Saturday evening’s meeting at Yankee Stadium. At the final whistle, the Dynamo were relieved to escape with a point.
The reflexes of Tyler Deric certainly didn’t hurt.
Houston survived a late surge by NYCFC, who had several golden chances in the final 15 minutes to pull out a win. The best came off the head of Jeb Brovsky but, as he has done throughout the season, Deric came through, springing off his line to preserve a 1-1 draw.
“Towards the end of the game guys were getting a little tired and a little lack of concentration and left a guy open in the middle of the box,” Deric told the media after the game. “It’s one of those things where you see a guy coming and you try and make a save and try and help out your team.”
That lack of concentration nearly tripped up Houston after controlling the first hour of the game, taking the lead on a 16th-minute Will Bruin goal and only conceding to NYCFC on a handball in the box right before the stroke of halftime. Striker David Villa calmly converted the spot kick to even things up.
While the open chances were troubling, Houston still survived.
The real wound came on the penalty call. Right back Raúl Rodríguez was ruled to have handled when the ball struck his raised arm going up for a header against Adam Nemec in the penalty box a minute before the halftime whistle.
“I’ve got to say with all intents and purposes, we were so much in control of the game at one-nil looking like a team that can go and get two or three, and I’ve got to be honest it’s never a penalty,” Dynamo head coach Owen Coyle said. “They’ve jumped together, and the only person who thought it was a penalty in the whole stadium was the referee. So we certainly had to pick ourselves up at halftime because the boys were absolutely gutted given what went against them.”
Houston also had to deal with a NYCFC defense willing to concede fouls to break up the Dynamo attack. New York committed 20 fouls, five on playmaker Giles Barnes alone, and four each on Bruin and midfielder Boniek García.
“I guess they know how dangerous we are going forward and their game plan was to try to just kill it before we could even get a chance,” said Bruin, whose reaction finish off a David Horst header on a corner kick was his fourth goal in four games. “If you don’t give out yellow cards early they’re just going to keep doing it, and I think that’s what happened to Giles. You can say that’s a sign of respect to because they know what he can do going forward.”
All in all, it was a result the Dynamo feel they let slip away.
“This one’s tough. I think nine out of 10 times we should win this game,” Deric said. “We’re disappointed to come away with just a point considering as many chances as we had. I thought we deserved more than one point.”
Darrell Lovell covers the Houston Dynamo for MLSsoccer.com.
