Winless run reaches 11 consecutive games
One of the roughest stretches in Dynamo history got a little bit rougher Saturday night.
Houston conceded one goal early and one goal late en route to a 2-0 road loss to Minnesota United at Allianz Field in St. Paul, Minn.
It is the 11th consecutive game without a win for the Dynamo (3-6-9, 18 points). For much of the skid, they have leaned on the fact that most of those games ended in draws, but now they’ve lost two games in a row and still haven’t won since May 29.
Houston also dropped to 0-6-5 in road games.
Even after his team mustered two on-target shots in 90 minutes, coach Tab Ramos said there’s reason to believe things will turn around quickly — likely as soon as it begins a stretch of six games that include five at home.
“There’s not one game where you’ve seen our team where their heads are down and they’re not working till the 90th minute,” Ramos said. “All we can promise is to work as hard as we can. And I think, at the moment, the players are doing that. We’re doing that as a staff and do we have to get better? Of course, because we’re not getting the results regardless of who’s here, who’s not here. We want to win games.”
Houston once again played without some of its top attacking players. Tyler Pasher missed the game with a right lower body injury. The trio of Maxi Urruti, Darwin Quintero and Ari Lassiter missed its third consecutive game due to Covid-related issues.
Their absences were startling at times. On several occasions, Dynamo players hit passes into or around the penalty area, but there were no other Dynamo players in the vicinity. On another, Memo Rodriguez let a pass he could have touched roll by him because he thought a teammate was there, but nobody was
The lackluster attack meant Minnesota (7-5-5, 26 points) needed only one goal to win, and the Loons got it in the 14th minute thanks to one physical and perhaps several mental mistakes by the Dynamo.
A shot from 30 yards away went straight to Dynamo goalkeeper Marko Maric, but it bounced off his chest as he attempted to cradle it. The ball spilled into the penalty area, and Minnesota’s Robin Lod was the first one to the ball and easily finished.
Lod may have gotten there first anyway, but the Dynamo will be left with a bad piece of tape to review. Defenders Tim Parker and Zarek Valentin and midfielder Derrick Jones were standing in about the same spot as Lod as the first shot was hit. Instead of following the shot, they stood still at the top of the 18-yard line.
Even without the goal, Minnesota controlled the game from the opening kickoff. It’s the second game in a row Ramos said the Dynamo “just weren’t sharp.”
“If you look at the first goal, Marko loses the ball and it’s a rebound, but we lost the ball, I believe, three times in our half of the field before they scored the goal,” Ramos said. “We can’t blame it on the mistake of one player. We didn’t come out sharp connecting passes, and unfortunately, by the time we started connecting passes we were already down in the game.
“I thought we played well after that, but that’s just not good enough. We have to play well from minute one.”
Dynamo midfielder Matias Vera hit the crossbar with a shot in the first half, and he had a shot saved from inside the 6-yard box in the second half.
Other than that, the Dynamo’s depleted attack didn’t present much of a challenge to Minnesota’s defense.
Minnesota scored its second goal in the 71st minute when Brent Kallman ran to the near post on a corner kick and flicked a header behind him into the side netting of the far post.