Wizards disappointed with draw in Houston
Kansas City's playoff hopes getting slimmer down the stretch
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- Despite numbers, Wizards settle for draw
- Highlights: HOU 1, KC 1
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- Landin scores first
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- Zoltan ties it up
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"It was a playoff game for us and it was a must-win," said Kansas City coach Peter Vermes. "Mathematically we are still alive, but we lost a huge opportunity today."
In the early going, the game was sloppy and physical due to the wet conditions. Despite that, Kei Kamara had a great opportunity to open the scoring for his new team and punish the one that traded him before the deadline. In the 14th minute, Claudio Lopez sent in a picture-perfect pass that found Kamara wide open behind the Dynamo defense. Unfortunately for the Wizards, Kamara's shot went off the post.
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"I didn't perform well enough to help my team out," said Kamara. "It's one of those where it's just not your day. Any other day, I put that in the back of the net. It just came out and I thought it was going in, but I didn't get the right touch on it."
The turning point for the Wizards should have come in the 17th minute as Dynamo forward Cam Weaver was sent off for a reckless challenge on midfielder Santiago Hirsig. Instead of jumping on the Dynamo with the man advantage, the Wizards let off some, to the disappointment of their head coach.
"Unfortunately when we got the man sent off, instead of us putting the pressure on and going after Houston, we took our foot off the gas pedal and let them in the game," said Vermes.
The Dynamo took advantage in the 26th minute. Brian Mullan sent in a beautiful left-footed cross that went across the face of the goal and to Dynamo forward Luis Angel Landin. Landin had a tough angle for a tap-in, but he calmly finished the chance to give Houston the 1-0 lead.
"We go down a goal and now we're chasing the game and they can sit back and put themselves in a shell and they did a good job, defended well, and those guys can fight and get points," said Vermes. "It became difficult for us to break down that shell. In the second half, we wanted to move the ball a little quicker and our four guys up front weren't moving [well]."
The quicker ball movement started to pay dividends for the Wizards as the game opened up a bit. Jack Jewsbury had a great opportunity where he went in one-on-one with Dynamo 'keeper Pat Onstad, but his first touch let him down as Onstad came out and applied pressure on him.
But in the 73rd minute, the Wizards got the equalizer. Lopez was given too much space with the ball and he picked out second-half substitute Zoltan Hercegfalvi. Lopez sent a beautiful ball over the Dynamo defense and into the path of Hercegfalvi, who blasted his first-time shot past Onstad for his first MLS goal.
"Getting a goal and tying the game was good," said Vermes. "But we needed to have a little bit more, and we didn't have enough fitness to finish the game."
In lieu of the fact that the Wizards needed three points to push for a playoff spot, the result was not good enough for Kansas City. They are six points out of eighth place overall and the final wild card spot with just three games left to be played, beginning with a trip next Saturday to Chivas USA.
"Very disappointing," said Kansas City defender Jimmy Conrad. "We had some chances, enough to probably win the game. Bane of our existence is when we go a man up, we can't seem to break them down. Credit to the other team for being organized and they got one on us. Houston's a good team and they showed why."
Added Davy Arnaud: "Obviously we came in here wanting to get three points. We knew what was at stake coming into the game. Three points would have been nice, but we have three games left and we are going to try and go and win all of those."
Since taking over as interim head coach, Vermes has seen the Wizards post a 3-4-2 record. However, in the end, the late-season charge might just fall short.
"Every game that we've played we've used as a measuring stick to see where we are at as a team," said Vermes. "Today we fell short and it's a team you have to measure yourself against because it's a consistent, well-organized, successful team and we have to measure up today [and we didn't]."
Dwain Capodice is a contributor to MLSnet.com
