Houston Dynamo coach Tab Ramos said his team was preparing for the challenges Sporting Kansas City forward Alan Pulido presented on Thursday.
Pulido hadn't played a full 90 minutes since Aug. 29. He hadn't scored since July 17.
But Pulido struck twice as Sporting KC struck down the Dynamo in a 2-1 win on Saturday at BBVA Stadium.
“I think for 60, 65 minutes we played pretty well,” Ramos said. “Unfortunately like it's happened in the last few games, we can’t take advantage of the way we play and make that into a lead in the game, and we're falling behind.”
The Dynamo (3-5-7, 16 points) had registered three times as many shots by the time Kansas City (7-5-2, 23 points) midfielder Gianluca Busio threaded a long through pass which exposed Houston’s defense. It found Pulido between a pair of defenders before he danced around Kiki Struna through the final third and angled a shot past a splitting Marko Maric for the lead early in the 34th minute.
“Their first goal came off a loss of possession in the middle by us and then basically a great play by Pulido,” Ramos said. “He goes one against two defenders and he beats both defenders and the goalkeeper on his own, so there’s not a whole lot we can do about that.”
Houston held advantages in total shots (13-11) and possession (about 60 to 40 percent). But it struggled to seriously threaten Kansas City, especially through the second half, as they sat deep to counter a Dynamo attack that gashed them for seven goals in their previous two meetings.
Where Houston sought to open lanes, Sporting KC closed them down. When forward Darwin Quintero sent a 64th minute free kick into the area, at least seven blue jerseys drowned out Houston’s orange and repelled the attack with relative comfort.
Kansas City largely challenged Houston to dissect its defense throughout the game, but that pursuit nearly cost Houston in the 66th minute when a pair of Maric saves and a timely block by defender Zarek Valentin bailed out its porous defending.
But in the 73rd minute, Houston received no such intervention.
Kansas City midfielder Roger Espinoza led an attack through midfield and distributed the ball to Busio on the nearside before Busio added his second assist on a pass toward the far side of the area. It found Pulido, who slid into an arcing shot over Maric to register a brace and ultimately put the game out of reach.
“In the second half, then obviously we open up a little bit more because we start throwing more numbers forward as we're trying to get the equalizer and that puts us in more of a bad situation in the back,” Ramos said. “It was a good play for them.”
Houston halved the deficit when defender Sam Junqua elevated between a pair of Kansas City defenders and headed the ball into the net following Quintero’s 84th minute corner kick.
“It's difficult to continue to tell the players sometimes, ‘Hey we gotta keep going because we're doing a good job, the goals will come and when one comes a lot are going to come,’” Ramos said. “We just couldn't get it to come fast enough today.”
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