Houston Dynamo vs Real Salt Lake Final Score: 10-man Dynamo draw against RSL

Houston were on the road Saturday night looking to get their second road win of the season. It didn’t quite play out that way as a boring first half gave way a second half red card that left the Dynamo with 10 men.

Unsurprisingly, the first half between the two teams was a bit of a snooze fest. That is often the case when these two play each other, Houston’s 5-1 victory over RSL earlier this season not included.

In the 20th minute of the game is was nearly Joao Plata who put Real Salt Lake on the scoreboard. Plata played a great shot at the net as Tyler Deric dove to make a stop on the ball. The shot from Plata was just wide of the net and didn’t need Deric to get a hand on to keep it out.

The best chance for the Dynamo in the first half came in the 31th minute as Memo Rodriguez tried his luck from distance. Alex chested the ball down at midfield before booting it to Rodriguez. Unfortunately for the midfielder, Nick Rimando saw his shot coming and was able to bat it away with little trouble.

As the first half wound down, Andrew Wenger sent in a dangerous cross for Manuro Manotas. The forward was surrounded by two RSL players, but still got his foot on the ball. However, he skied the shot as it went no where near Rimando in goal.

Houston failed to put together much possession as RSL dominated 65.6% to Houston’s 34.4% in the first half. Much of Houston’s possession came from the final fifteen minutes of the half as the team looked to be pushing harder to score before the half time whistle. RSL got off six shots in the first half but none of them were on target. Houston had just one shot on target of their five.

RSL started the second half strong peppering the goal with chances for the first five minutes. None of the shots had enough to make it over the goal line.

Alex was issued a yellow card after some pushing and shoving with an RSL player. Then in the 66th minute, mere minutes after the first card, he was issued a second yellow card for a high boot. With Alex’s ejection from the game the Dynamo were left to play the rest of the game with only 10 men.

RSL continued to dominate the game finishing the game with 26 shots yet they didn’t have a single shot on target, twenty of those shots came in the second half. Possession stats for the final game were almost identical to the stats of the first half. Houston didn’t win the game but they somehow managed to keep RSL from winning it either.

Houston play San Jose next weekend at home on Saturday at 8 pm CT.

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