Manotas’ goals salvage Arnaud’s debut
Staring down another drop in the Western Conference standings, the Dynamo attack came alive in time to earn the team its first point in four weeks. The Dynamo tied the Colorado Rapids 2-2 in interim Davy Arnaud’s head coaching debut with the team at BBVA Stadium on Saturday.
Mauro Manotas scored two second-half goals to erase a 2-0 Colorado lead. Early on, Arnaud’s debut looked to be spoiled.
In the seventh minute, Rapids (7-13-6, 27 points) midfielder Sam Nicholson fielded a long ball from the right side of the field and popped it in towards Diego Rubio. The forward charged onto the ball, splitting center backs Maynor Figueroa and Aljaz Struna and fired a shot past Joe Willis a split second before the goalkeeper could react.
“It’s obviously not how we wanted to start the game,” Arnaud said. “After the stretch we’ve been on, the week that we’ve had and after that kind of start it could’ve been a bad re-sponse because we could’ve hung our heads and given up.”
The Dynamo (9-13-4, 31 points) dismissed coach Wilmer Cabrera on Tuesday and entered the match with a four-game losing streak.
Seemingly revitalized by the prospects of dropping a fifth to the eleventh-place team in the conference, the Dynamo attack came alive.
In the 13th minute, Memo Rodriguez danced around defenders along the edge of the box and created and floated a pass to the opposite end of the area but the ball was too high for Alberth Elis to finish with a header.
Moments later, Elis took the express route down right sideline, setting up a shot that ricocheted off crossbar. Rodriguez and Elis each had shots in the 19th and 21st minutes, respectively.
But in the 39th minute, Rubio double-dipped in eerily similar fashion to his earlier goal.
Again, he received the ball between the center backs when he intercepted Figueroa’s pass deep in Dynamo territory. He exploded between them — prompting Willis to charge at him — before bursting past the keeper and angling the ball into the net.
“It was a rough start to the game,” Arnaud said. “When you respond like that to such adversity … and you get a result from a bad position, I couldn’t be prouder.”
Throughout its recent struggles, the team had been unable to finish opportune chances while paying for casual defensive lapses.
The first half stats illustrated that dynamic. The Dynamo recorded 15 shots to Colorado’s five and five corner kicks to none.
But they finally got on the board in the 74th minute when Manotas netted his 10th goal of the season after receiving a long Adam Lundkvist pass from the wing.
Manotas scored again five minutes later.
This time the pass came from closer range when midfielder Tommy McNamara worked into the box and angled the ball towards the top of the area where Manotas quickly dispatched it to the back of the net — before grabbing the ball out of the net to kick into the stands and kiss his jersey.
Entering the contest in ninthplace in the conference, the Dynamo were desperate for points and pushed for the late win. But after seven minutes of stoppage time, the match ended in a draw.
“For me that’s the biggest take away,” Arnaud said. “The way they came back in the sec-ond half was fantastic.”