Bassi’s first goal of season salvages draw

Amine Bassi picked the perfect time to score his first goal of the MLS season.

Bassi scored in the sixth minute of first-half stoppage time to help the Dynamo earn a 1-1 draw with FC Dallas in the second leg of the Texas Derby on Saturday night in front of 19,284 spectators at Shell Energy Stadium.

“The reality is the performances aren’t necessarily resembling the points that we’re getting,” Dynamo coach Ben Olsen said. “That’s something we got to continue to kind of deal with and not give away games when I look at this stat line and look at all this and feel in control of the game. We’re just not maximizing the points right now and hopefully we can turn that around. But overall, another good performance just didn’t get the points that I think we deserved.”

The Dynamo, who remain winless against their in-state rivals in league play this season, picking up one point in four games, made three lineup changes from their 1-0 loss against Austin FC this past Wednesday with Héctor Herrera returning as a starter.

Shortly after colliding with Griffin Dorsey inside the box in a scary moment, Erik Sviatchenko nearly opened the scoring in the 43rd minute on a header from the center of the box that missed to the right.

After launching 10 firsthalf shots, including five in a five-minute stretch, the Dynamo put together a five-pass sequence to run the length of the field on Bassi’s goal in first-half stoppage time. Sviatchenko played a long ball to Ibrahim Aliyu on the left-side corner and Aliyu then found Bassi, who played it to Herrera with a backheel pass.

Herrera immediately touched it to Daniel Steres on the left side, allowing Steres to thread the needle for his first assist of the season. Bassi, last year’s leading scorer, gave the Dynamo a 1-0 lead on a left-footed shot from the center of the box for his first goal since November. Houston held Dallas to a pair of shots in the first half.

“We’re working on that part of it,” Steres said. “To actually get a goal after a good sequence like that will help us moving forward because we’ve had a lot of sequences that we haven’t finished off.”

But Dallas hit the Dynamo with a double whammy in the 69th minute. Following a Coco Carrasquilla turnover on their side of the field, Petar Musa used a Bernard Kamungo assist to find the 1-1 equalizer on a left-footed shot from the center of the box to the left corner. The play ended with Dynamo goalkeeper Steve Clark being helped off the field. Backup Andrew Tarbell played the rest of the match and Olsen had no update on Clark.

The Dynamo were caught in a little lull leading up to the equalizer.

“I think it’s just an awareness thing,” Olsen said. “Understanding that as we get leads and push the game that we just got to be a little bit more dialed in. We’ve given up a lot of soft goals and goals that teams aren’t necessarily earning. That’s been a little theme this year, and I’ve said it already, has cost us some points. So, we got to clean up some of that and make sure that when teams are scoring on us, they’re really earning the goal.”

Aliyu and Sviatchenko squandered chances to find the back of the net in second-half stoppage time. The Dynamo outshot Dallas 18-7 with an 8-3 advantage in shots on goal while holding 61.3% possession. Clark had two saves and Maarten Paes had seven for Dallas.