Aliyu’s goal provides first MLS victory of season
The Dynamo picked up their first MLS win of the season Saturday night with the help of forward Ibrahim Aliyu and goalkeeper Steve Clark.
Aliyu scored late in the first half, and Clark made four saves as the Dynamo defeated the Portland Timbers 1-0 at Shell Energy Stadium.
Houston (1-1-1) handed Portland (2-1-1) its first loss of the season and bounced back from consecutive losses at home against New York (MLS) and Columbus (CONCACAF Champions Cup).
“First of all, it’s nice to win. It’s nice to get that first one under our belt at home,” Dynamo coach Ben Olsen said. “Three home games in the league — it’s important to grab points here, because it’s a hard league to go on the road. …Portland was very good. They’re a handful. I can see why they’ve got the points that they have.”
It didn’t take long for the Timbers to display their attacking prowess as they put Clark, who was honored prior to the game for recently reaching 250 regular-season career starts, to work early. Clark had three saves in the first nine minutes — two of those on a pair of right-footed shots from Santiago Moreno and Cristhian Paredes in the third minute. Clark denied Juan Mosquera six minutes later.
Portland’s Maxime Crépeau stopped Aliyu’s rightfooted shot from outside the box in the 10th minute, but Aliyu appeared again late in the first half and capitalized on a mistake from Crépeau and Mosquera in the 43rd minute.
After Coco Carrasquilla used the outside of his foot to play the ball inside the box, Crépeau and Mosquera collided near the 6-yard box trying to clear the ball. The collision allowed Aliyu to race past, recover the ball and score on a right-footed shot from close range to the top right corner for his second MLS goal. “You need somebody that’s hot, and he (Aliyu) has earned these — he’s staying alive,” Olsen said. “Especially, the way we play with Amine (Bassi) now — he’s kind of a false nine — it’s important for him to find himself in the box and be available to score goals, because sometimes our overloads happen somewhere else, and we need bodies in the box, and he’s been able to do that.”
Clark quickly picked up another save to start the second half on Antony’s right-footed shot from the left side of the box in the center of the goal. Evander, Moreno and Dario Zuparic threatened multiple times the rest of the way, but nothing materialized. David Ayala came close to equalizing in the 89th minute, but his left-footed shot from the right side of the box missed to the right while Antony also missed to the right in second-half stoppage time.
Crépeau had three saves, while Clark collected his first clean sheet of the season. The game proved to be chippy, producing a total of 26 fouls —16 for the Dynamo and 10 for the Timbers.
“It’s a really big moment. A loss today day would hurt,” Olsen said. “I was proud of them to kind of hang in there down the stretch. You could tell mentally, physically, it was at times a slog. Still, we need to manage the game better with the ball and make better decisions and all this stuff. For early in the season, it’s about getting some results before you’re perfect, and I was proud they did that today.”