Houston Dynamo 0, Seattle Sounders 1: Rate the Players and Quick Thoughts

At the beginning of the year I introduced a new way for the Dynamo Theory community to be a part of Player Ratings. After matches everyone will get a chance to submit how each player did on a scale of 1 to 10 which will be averaged out in a later article. These ratings are interesting because we all view how players perform differently. Rating websites like WhoScored.com view things from an analytical perspective, but a statistic, even one as big as a goal, doesn’t quite tell the entire story as some goals are bigger and more important to a game than others. I think seeing how we as a community feel can create fun conversations. Of course, how we feel individually matters as well so please comment about player performances as you wish in the comments.

Quick Thoughts about the Game:

1) The Houston Dynamo played like their home and road form blended together – and that is a step in the right direction. At times they attacked the ball well together, weren’t afraid to play the long pass, and had some quality chances to get a goal, but at other times they simply had too many players behind the ball, weren’t committed going forward, and had no clue how to build up chances when given a chance to possess the ball.

2) While the Dynamo typically surrender possession to opponents, largely due to their direct and fast style of play, what really hurt the Dynamo was passing accuracy. The Dynamo won’t be one of the best passing teams in the league because they love to play the long ball, something not always destined to get to its target, but their short passing in the midfield was abysmal. Too many giveaways that prevented us from getting forward and giveaways that granted Seattle a chance in a dangerous area of the field were significant contributors to why we lost this game.

3) The chances on goal we did have were poorly taken. Both Cubo Torres and Mauro Manotas were able to fire off a quality shot only to see it go right at the goalkeeper. Alberth Elis also had an opportunity, but he fired his shot too soon and could have taken another dribble for a closer shot or squared a pass. In the final moments of the game after some nice play by Dylan Remick, Manotas wasted another chance by sending in a low ball right to Seattle goalkeeper Stefan Frei. If one of these was better we would be talking about how great it was to get back-to-back points on the road.

4) The game really opened up when Alberth Elis came on the field. It seemed like for awhile Elis was playing the center forward role which let him spread the field even more than he usually does which let the Dynamo send him a pass and have him take on defenses basically by himself. This game definitely could have used more Elis along with his Honduran striking partner Romell Quioto.

Rate the Players: