The corner flag’s life flashes before its eyes as Giles Barnes flies through the air after his second goal to put the Dynamo 3-1 up. The game ended in a 4-4 draw.
Houston, Texas — The fiery rivalry is still ablaze between the Houston Dynamo and Sporting Kansas City. In this iteration of the rivalry game fans were treated to 8 goals, a penalty, a red card, a fight, and an additional 4 yellow cards in a chippy encounter at BBVA Compass Stadium.
The story of the game was about mistakes. Mistakes from players, mistakes from the referee, mistakes of all kinds were on show. Ultimately it was mistakes that marred what was a fiery, exciting, rivalry game.
“Today I made maybe 10 mistakes in the game, every one of us 10 mistakes” said man of the match Raul Rodriguez. The former Espanyol player added “soccer is about mistakes, you have to learn from them. Giles’ mistake is a goal against us but everything is about mistakes. It’s about learn, it’s about moving on to the next game.”
Barnes’ mistake let Sporting Kansas City back into the game. Prior to this, however, Barnes twice dribbled wide-eyed toward the Sporting Kansas City goal with the game at 3-1 and elected to shoot both times. Both times he had the pass available to him, but he went for his hat trick — an attribute that many should applaud in a striker — rather than be unselfish. More mistakes for the Dynamo to lament.
“Just a bad decision really… I didn’t want to give it Kofi, he had a man on him — I didn’t actually see Dom creeping on the other side” said Barnes of his howler.
The Jamaican international made no excuses for his mistakes, he owned all of them in a way you’d expect from a captain, or a veteran. Barnes has seamlessly grown into his role as a senior member of the Dynamo locker room.
“In hindsight I should’ve played it with my left foot not the outside of my right foot. I didn’t think anybody was there, and I probably put Tyler [Deric] in a little bit of danger too. I’ve made a mistake, I’ll learn from it. There’s always hindsight: I could’ve kicked it out, could’ve turned, but at the time that’s what i’ve seen and i’ll put my hands up for it” admitted Barnes in the post game interview.
The game was marred also by a baffling refereeing decision by Kevin Stott. Stott chose to award a penalty to Sporting Kansas City, and send off Jermaine Taylor, after the official adjudged Taylor to have handled on the line. Replays have since shown that Taylor cleared the ball with his chest.
“What handball?!” exclaimed DaMarcus Beasley. “I was right in front of Jermaine [Taylor] trying to cover, and his hand was behind him, the ref told me he had his hand out but obviously he didn’t see it” added the veteran.
Outpourings on social media suggested Stott’s assistant referee made the decision, but this isn’t the case. Kevin Stott said that he “gave the decision to award the penalty,” and when asked about why he gave it he stated “I saw the ball hit Taylor’s arm.” Clearly Mr. Stott has not seen replays of the incident.
The game ended in a 4-4 draw after Feilhaber slammed home a 30 yard wonder-strike in the 94th minute.
After the game there was much buzz about what Owen Coyle might say, how he might say it, and then bizarrely some conversation that Will Bruin being substituted in the 69th minute had cost the Dynamo the game. Jesus Ortiz from the Houston Chronicle even asserted that Coyle had “screwed things up” for the Dynamo by pulling the striker in a tweet.
They were wrong, all of them. At 3-1 the game, as Owen Coyle said, was won.
The story of the game lies in the last 13 minutes. From minute 83 until minute 96. When Will Bruin left the game in the 69th minute he had amassed 22 touches on the ball. Bruin had a great game, his best in a Dynamo shirt this season, but is anyone claiming a player who had 22 touches being pulled from the game is the reason the Dynamo lost?
It might surprise you to learn that the player with the most touches on the ball for the Dynamo was Nathan Sturgis with 47. It shouldn’t surprise people read that, Sturgis has transformed the Dynamo midfield since coming into it.
Now you see him: Nate Sturgis, Houston’s un-sung hero so far (published 4/24)
When Sturgis left the game in the 83rd minute — after the penalty and red card — in addition to leading the team in touches (47) he led the team in tackles (3), was second only to Brad Davis in percentage of the Dynamo’s possession (4% to Davis’ 5%), led the team in attempted passes (40), led the team in completed passes (30), was not beaten by his man, and contributed an assist. He played 83 minutes.
His replacement Luis Garrido, who was on the field for 13 minutes, and attempted but did not complete one pass in 13 minutes. He attempted one tackle and was beaten, and only touched the ball twice in 13 minutes — that’s 0.15 touches per minute on the field for Garrido.
By the time Sturgis went off the game was poised at 4-3 to Houston. Largely in part due to a silly mistake by Giles Barnes, and an extremely bad decision by referee Kevin Stott. All that was left was for the Dynamo to shut up shop and bring it home.
They couldn’t.
Any time Houston got the ball it was like a football team trying to throw the ball without their quarterback — they gave it straight back to the other team.
As we can see from the heat map below, Nathan Sturgis’ deepest position was just outside the edge of the “D,” his average position between the “D” and half-way line.
If we look at the heat map for Luis Garrido’s 15 minutes we can see how deep he was sitting.
With Sturgis’ average field position being higher up than Garrido’s, one wonders if Feilhaber’s wonder-strike could have been prevented as Sturgis would have been more likely in a position to block either the header down, or the shot.
Nathan Sturgis averaged 0.57 touches per minute for Houston on Saturday before his removal. The only player who averaged more than him was Jermaine Taylor. Up until his sending off Taylor was averaging 0.575 touches per minute. When you play the last 26 minutes of the game without the two players most involved in your play, you are going to have problems.
In this instance, Owen Coyle was forced into the change for Jermaine Taylor. But when you replace Sturgis’ 0.57 touches per minute with Luis Garrido’s 0.15 touches per minute there is a clear indication as to why things may have gone pear shaped in the final minutes for the Dynamo, and it wasn’t because Will Bruin was taken off in the 69th minute.
“The game is comfortable at 3-1,” said head coach Owen Coyle. A perturbed Coyle added “Giles made an unforced error and it let them back in at 3-2, we’re still comfortable at 3-2 and the referee… I’m not interested in what he said, I’m telling you it’s hit Taylor in the chest. We made a mistake within the team, that’s what happened in the game.”
Coyle admitted “Its a point but it feels like a defeat. We were the better team tonight, no doubt about it.”
The Houston Dynamo will look to bounce back from the crushing blows dealt to them in this draw against local rivals FC Dallas this Friday night at BBVA Compass Stadium.
Follow Scott Nicholls on Twitter: @scottnicholls
