Houston Dynamo vs Sporting Kansas City: Highlights, stats and quotes
A stoppage time goal from Ivan Franco helped the Dynamo fight back to earn a point in a 2-2 draw with Sporting Kansas City Saturday night at Shell Energy Stadium. Aliyu Ibrahim scored his first goal in Major League Soccer to tie the game just before halftime.
MATCH SUMMARY
Houston Dynamo FC 2-2 Sporting Kansas City
Saturday, July 8, 2023
Venue: Shell Energy Stadium - Houston, Texas
Referee: Nima Saghafi
Assistants: Jeffrey Swartzel, Kali Smith
Fourth Official: Alyssa Nichols
VAR: Jair Marrufo
Attendance: 16,489
Weather: 90 degrees, partly cloudy
SCORING SUMMARY
SKC: Alan Pulido (Gadi Kinda) 25’
HOU: Aliyu Ibrahim (Héctor Herrera) 45+2’
SKC: Alan Pulido (penalty kick) 62’
HOU: Iván Franco (Thorleifur Úlfarsson) 90+8’
DISCIPLINE SUMMARY
HOU: Thorleifur Úlfarsson (caution; dissent) 49’
HOU: Héctor Herrera (caution; foul) 50’
SKC: Danny Rosero (caution; foul) 65’
HOU: Sebastián Ferreira (caution; foul) 90+10’
SKC: Tim Leibold (caution; foul) 90+11’
LINEUPS & STATS
Houston Dynamo FC: Steve Clark; Daniel Steres (Brad Smith 88’), Ethan Bartlow, Erik Sviatchenko, Franco Escobar; Héctor Herrera, Artur; Nelson Quiñónes (Thorleifur Úlfarsson 68’), Amine Bassi, Corey Baird (Iván Franco 78’), Aliyu Ibrahim (Sebastián Ferreira 78’)
Unused Substitutes: Xavier Valdez, Griffin Dorsey, Luís Caicedo, Brooklyn Raines
Total shots: 19 (Héctor Herrera 6)
Shots on goal: 6 (Héctor Herrera and Aliyu Ibrahim tied with 2)
Fouls: 19 (three players tied with 3)
Offside: 1 (Daniel Steres 1)
Corner kicks: 5
Saves: 1 (Steve Clark 1)
Sporting Kansas City: Kendall McIntosh; Tim Leibold (Logan Ndenbe 75’), Andreu Fontàs, Dany Rosero, Jake Davis; Gadi Kinda, Erik Thommy (Khiry Shelton 75’), Rémi Walter; Dániel Sallói (Marinos Tzionis 66’), Alan Pulido (Robert Castellanos 90’), Johnny Russell (Roger Espinoza 66’)
Unused substitutes: John Pulskamp, Cam Duke, Stephen Afrifa, Danny Flores
Total shots: 5 (Alan Pulido 3)
Shots on goal: 3 (Alan Pulido 2)
Fouls: 10 (Gadi Kinda 3)
Offside: 1 (Daniel Sallói 1)
Corner kicks: 4
Saves: 4 (Kendall McIntosh 4)
HOUSTON DYNAMO HEAD COACH BEN OLSEN
On takeaways from the result:
“I'm still trying to process that game. Certainly, it was an entertaining game. Getting goals after being down twice and battling back. I thought we were late to the game. The water break gave us a chance to make some adjustments, and we snapped out of it. From then on, I thought we were good. The first 25 to 30 minutes just wasn’t awesome. The spirit wasn't there nor the energy. It cost us a lot of work. It obviously cost us a goal. But there's a resiliency to the group. Even on a day when things don't go our way, we kind of give them two goals, we're able to get something out of it. That’s an important trait in a team. The message to the group is that we shouldn't have to make it that hard at home. If we show up and give the type of commitment and energy that we had after 30 minutes, I think we would have won that game. Even say that we gifted them two goals, we still had 19 shots, and a lot of those were pretty good looks. Things didn't bounce our way in the box with a couple clearances on the line. Things just didn't necessarily go our way on some of the final actions. But we got a bunch of chances with 43 touches in the opposing box and 46 final third entries. So, there was a lot of good. They did a good job of chopping the game up. The second half, they chopped it up and chopped it up. I thought the referee allowed them to chop the game up. Stoppage time is one thing. It’s good to have 10 minutes of stoppage time, but we shouldn't allow it to get to 10 minutes. You must control the game in that way because teams come in and try to break up the rhythm. That’s a little frustrating, but we got something late out of this. That beats losing.”
On Aliyu Ibrahim’s first MLS goal:
“It was a thing of beauty. That was nice. I can't wait to watch it back. It was an entertaining game with a lot of drama. I've heard about the Kansas City and Houston rivalry. Back in the day, guys like (general manager) Pat (Onstad) have been around here and they understand that. It was nice that there was some real tension in that game. Two teams that really wanted it and want to keep moving up in the standings. But it was a good goal. It was a really good goal. (FW Aliyu) Ibrahim does so many good things for this team, so I'll give him a shout out. He works extremely hard without the ball and has a good understanding defensively. He makes a lot of runs and a lot of selfless runs. He’s been fighting. He’s been a good scorer, and when you don't score each game, it becomes heavy. For him to be on the end of that, it's a special moment for him in the league. Hopefully there's more to come.”
On Héctor Herrera’s performance:
“Let me say something about (MF) Héctor (Herrera). He was incredible tonight. He was a machine. That's one of the best games I've seen him play for this team, and he just willed this team tonight. His energy was contagious, and his quality was through the roof. He was a lot of fun to him tonight. Him being an All-Star is a no brainer for me. He's been as good as any midfielder in this league. He’s becoming a good leader for this team and a guy that they respect. They knew that they wanted to go to battle with him, so it was great. He'll enjoy himself at the All-Star game, while knowing that we’ve got a quick turnaround. He’s earned it, and I’m excited for him. We haven't had someone in the All-Star game since 2018, so these are little steps. We want to see guys being elevated into the All-Star team, so these are all little signs that we're going in the right direction.”
HOUSTON DYNAMO DEFENDER ETHAN BARTLOW
On the result:
“A couple of times we got in our own way and we should have won that game. Anytime you can fight back, we were down a goal. We came back and then we were down a goal again. It speaks to the character of this team.”
On the team’s resiliency:
“This team's always going to fight for each other. If there's a chance for us to come back, we will. We're going to do everything we can. I felt like we could have gotten more goals tonight and we could have won that game for sure.”
HOUSTON DYNAMO FORWARD IVÁN FRANCO
Sobre anotar el gol del empate:
“Ayuda un poco, porque nos permite seguir sin perder en casa. Necesitamos más de nosotros, más de trabajo, y poder lograr los resultados.”
Sobre la presencia de su hija en el estadio:
“Estoy muy feliz, es algo inexplicable, porque mi hija para mí es algo muy bueno, y además anotar el gol y dedicárselo a ella es muy importante para mí.”
Sobre la confianza que produce anotar el gol y responder la oportunidad brindada:
“Tenemos muchos compañeros que cada vez que entran hacen bien su trabajo. Tenemos un plantel muy competitivo, y hoy me tocó a mí, tengo que seguir anotando goles para ayudar al equipo.”
Sobre este empate con sabor a victoria:
“Muy importante, porque estamos muy apretados en la tabla de posiciones. Debemos trabajar un poco más, intentar jugar un poco más, eso es lo que nos está faltando. Cada vez que jugamos lo hacemos bien, pero a veces nos olvidamos de jugar.”
HOUSTON DYNAMO DEFENDER DANIEL STERES
On the game:
“It’s not the result we wanted, we wanted to get the full three points out of a game like this. We didn't really start off on the best foot, we let them get into the match and they possessed the ball pretty well. So, it's good for us to fight back and get the point out of this. It showed some character tonight and that's a positive we can take from it and move on to Wednesday.”
On scoring in stoppage time of both halves and showing team resiliency:
“The team never gave up, we never backed down and we went down one goal and we kept fighting to play our game. I thought the first half, we had a hell of a goal to finish off the first half. I felt good coming out of halftime. In the second half I thought it was all of us, we had a bunch of chances. Two goals against the run of play today and it was good on the guys to keep fighting all the way.”
