by Ethan Johnson
April 6, 2008

FC Dallas playing road games against Houston haven't ended well. As in, FCD has yet to score a standings point at Robertson Stadium. Might this match be the exception?

• Usual advisory: These teams really do not like each other.
• Pat Onstad (Houston) is a force to be reckoned with in goal, and he's 40. Good for him. Pretty wild that this season has brought about back to back opposing goalies that I enjoy watching. Onstad tends to get wrapped up in on-field drama, which I think can be his undoing. Which means I'm rooting for the drama. Go Pat go! Get distracted and forget to tend goal!
• Here's your drama: Blake Wagner (Dallas) jumps up for a ball and shoulders Onstad in the face. Onstad is pretty resilient; his scary bounce off of the turf during Gold Cup action last year was a great example. He pulled himself together, and I figured that was that. Nope, he had to be subbed out a short time later for "Caig". Caig's CV seems impressive enough, but warning bells went off when I started doing the math. England this, premier league that... and then he ended up in MLS, as a backup GK for Houston. Does not compute. And he's 31. RAZZ. But, with all of his background I figured he'd be a competent backup. Guess what?
• Kenny Cooper gets off of my Shit List with a crazy lob/chip shot over Caig's head and into the net. The announcers didn't get too excited about it at first, because they thought Cooper was offside. Caig let it happen because he thought the ball was going over the net. No and no. 1-0 FCD.
• Houston scored by way of some new player who I haven't built up a sufficient hatred for. What irritated me was the lack of clearance by FCD. Get the ball AWAY from your net, yo! 1-1.
• Before the break, Cooper finds the net more convincingly to bring Dallas back up 2-1.
• Ironically, after FCD made provisions to offer English-language TV coverage for all of their games this season, I ended up switching to Telefutura at the half because the announcers are more pleasing to the ear. And there's no missing any goals. GOL!
• FCD managed to lose their lead AGAIN in the second half to Brian Fucking Ching. 2-2.
• While I was typing some outrage on the FC Dallas fan forum, I heard "GOL" over my shoulder. Arturo Alvarez capitalized on a missed Houston corner kick to race down and go 1-on-1 against Caig, and fired a sweet shot right past him and into the net. 3-0, and Arturo transitions smoothly from zero to hero.
• Meanwhile, FCD annoyed me immensely by spending a fair amount of time twiddling around. Not in a cool "maintain possession and freeze out Houston" kind of way. More like a "I have no idea what formation they think they're running, I don't think they do either, and I am entirely unconvinced that there is any sort of operating strategy other than 'be opportunistic but otherwise, uh, kick the ball or something if it comes to you'" kind of way. I hate that kind of way. Seriously: The ball got sent out for throw-ins because it was kicked out "just cuz". Give-and-go passes were attempted without anyone clearly set up to give or go. This is Not Good, and had better be clamped down soon or this is going to be a long season. If we wanted that, we'd be Toronto FC fans. (Zing!)
• Dominic Oduro and Ricardinho both managed to get the ball favorably to set up a quick pass for a high percentage goal attempt. Instead, they both shot it right at the goalie, who redeemed himself with two well timed saves. As for Oduro, look, I appreciate that he has blazing speed, but all of that is useless if there's no finishing. And "finishing" often means setting up the assist, not trying to be the hero 1-on-1. Cool that Arturo did it, but that was the Once. Calen Carr was full of blazing speed for the Chicago Fire last year, and that didn't amount to a hill of beans against hapless Colorado last year when I dropped by for the second half. Just sayin'.
• Despite my cautious optimism, the sloppy play around FCDs goal resulted in a late equalizer. 3-3. Stalemate apparently has been snatched from the jaws of Victory.
• And that's ballgame. Lots to work out on the training field this week before the next game. On the up side, FCD gets their first standings point against Houston (at Robertson) but they really coulda woulda shoulda had 3. For what it's worth, FCD has 2 points to Houston's 1. Take what you can get, I think.

Next up: FCD returns home against New York this coming Saturday. <EM>

(Much, much more virtual ink has been spilled by me about Major League Soccer. The fledgling but growing MLS article archive may be found here.)