Anatomy of a Goal: Quioto Shakes and Bakes

Friday night’s loss to LAFC was bad. There is no getting around that. To be outplayed, at home, by a team of mostly reserves, is downright disappointing. There’s no other way to put it. But that’s not why I’m here on this website today. I’m here to bring something good, something you can hopefully read, smile a little, and say to yourself, “self, that was actually a pretty cool thing from that otherwise dreadful game.” Without further ado, a breakdown of Romell Quioto’s goal.

This goal starts off with Alberth Elis on the ball dribbling to the right. He leaves the ball for Tomas Martinez and continues his run to the right. You can see how leery the LAFC defense is of Elis as they all have an eye on him and begin to track his run, leaving the left side of the attack exposed.

Martinez receives the ball from Elis and he immediately spots the open man, Romell Quioto. Quioto has about six yards of space between himself and the nearest defender, Steven Beitashour.

Now with the ball at his feet, Quioto sizes up Beitashour. Mauro Manotas and Elis have made runs in to the box and Tomas Martinez is trailing the play. But Quioto has bigger ideas, he’s going to take Beitashour one on one.

Quioto cuts inside on his right foot to get Beitashour off balance. There looks to be a lane for Quioto to shoot but he’s not quite done with Beitashour.

Oh no, Quioto cuts back to his left and Beitashour is wobbling. The LAFC defender is now completely off guard and being the veteran defender that he is, he knows exactly how this ends.

And down goes Beitashour! Quioto lays waste to his defender and is now in position to shoot. I mean, what happened to Beitashour should be outlawed. Just look at this in the magic of slow motion.

Quioto’s shot takes a slight deflection, enough to beat Tyler Miller, and get the Dynamo on the board first, after just three minutes. Steven Beitashour has the look of a man who knows exactly how many highlights and gifs he is about to end up on.

As for the rest of the game, let’s just pretend that didn’t happen. Remember, “self, that was actually a pretty cool thing from that otherwise dreadful game.”