Jubilee: Houston Dynamo

The Houston Dynamo has won the MLS CUP 2006 last Sunday!

The New England Revolution had great forwards in Twellman, Dempsey and playmaker Shalrie Joseph that makes frequent runs at the Dynamo, but Houston’s decision of dropping 11 players back proves to be a very tough wall to break. Houston Dynamo’s counter-attack was rendered ineffective most of the regular game and the first overtime.

There were always two players on Brian Ching and Paul Dalglish (son of the great King Kenny Dalglish) was marked to the teeth. Playing the 3-5-2 formation also takes away the regular flank play that Houston Dynamo was known for, but it was necessary because star center midfielder Ricardo Clark was held out because of accumulative yellow cards.

In the second overtime both team was getting tired and larger holes started to show up. That’s when Taylor Twellman shoot a screamer to the far left pole for New England to take a 1-0 lead!!! It was 7 minutes to the final whistle. The half the crowd erupted, while the orange colored fans sat in dismay. Twellman and a his buddies sprinted from one side of the field to the other celebrating.Then the kick off for Houston. Brian Mullan took the ball and ran it down the right flank (New England midfielder let him probably out of breath from the celebration sprint), dribble pass a defender and made a high deflected cross to the center. Brian Ching fought through the two sandwich defenders, adjusted for the deflection and headed the ball pass the goalie to the lower right post for the 1-1 tie!!! That was only 71 seconds later. Houston equalized.
The fans in orange went into a second of disbelief and then erupted with the biggest celebration “in history”. (The radio commentator was still describing the Twellman goal and suddenly he was screaming “GOAL”… did not have time to describe how the goal built up)

The second overtime ended with a 1-1 tie. My ice-blooded Houston Dynamo then won it with a superb save by Pat Onstad in the PK!!! Yeah!!Other League achievements:

Click for the recap of the game, here.

Brian Ching’s 25 yards Bicycle Kick Winner, won the Goal of the Year award!!
Click to see a clip, here.

Second place? Dwayne De Rosario’s answer to David Beckham’s half field goal!!
Click to see a clip, here.

Dwayne De Rosario, Canadian international player was the runner up to the Most Valuable Player award. His lone first-timer goal, was also the goal the beat Chelsea in the MLS All-Star game. First team Chelsea no less. Personally, I think he is the best player in the MLS to date.

Oh! ya, we are the other Canadian National Team.