A single goal was just about enough to give Columbus Crew SC another victory against a resilient 10-man Houston Dynamo during Saturday night’s match-up at MAPFRE Stadium.
Houston’s poor start to the season continued after just 18 minutes when Dynamo ‘keeper Tyler Deric, making his first start of the year, brought down Federico Higuain after the Crew forward found himself through on goal. Deric was shown a straight red for denying a clear goal scoring chance, despite Houston having several defenders running to cover the goal and Higuain moving towards an acute angle.
Kei Kamara decided to take the responsibility of taking the resulting spot-kick and confidently placed it to the opposite direction of sub goalkeeper Joe Willis, whose first touch of the ball was to remove it from his net as Crew SC went 1-0 up.
The remaining 70 minutes of the game turned into a training ground exercise as Houston held defensively-firm with everyone behind the ball and let Crew SC tap the ball around the field and amass a whopping 72% possession but creating very few scoring opportunities.
Steve Clark came up big with a couple of saves when Houston did manage to break into the Crew SC half but the away team never really looked like equalizing as Crew SC ran down the clock to grind out an unconvincing yet important 3 points and a clean sheet.
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Matt Ellis is a freelance photographer who covers bands that visit the city and the Columbus Crew MLS team. More about Matt can be found at Matt Ellis Photography.