By Ridge Mahoney
A blown transformer and subsequent power failure at Robertson Stadium in Houston forced a postponement of the CONCACAF Champions' Cup semifinal first leg between the Dynamo and Pachuca originally scheduled for Wednesday night.
Instead, the game will be played at Robertson at 6 pm (ET) on Thursday, setting up a Fox Soccer Channel doubleheader. FSC will air the match live, with the live telecast of D.C. United-Guadalajara from RFK Stadium to follow at 8 pm (ET)
The status of two key Dynamo players racing to recover will certainly be helped by the delay. Midfielder Dwayne DeRosario (hamstring) and goalkeeper Pat Onstad (calf) were listed as probable prior to the postponement. Zach Wells was expected to start in goal and whether the extra day has allowed DeRosario's condition to improve sufficiently that he could be considered in the starting lineup is the proverbial game-time decision.
Following the quarterfinal victory against Costa Rican club Puntarenas, Houston played three preseason matches at Home Depot Center to hone overall fitness and game sharpness. Yet Pachuca, which won the Copa Sudamericana last August a few months after capturing the 2006 Mexican league Clausura season, is in peak form.
Halfway through the current Clausura tournament, it is atop Group 2 with five wins, three ties, and one loss for 18 points. It plays at pace, as it displayed last weekend by beating Morelia, 1-0, on the road with a counterattack goal by substitute Christian Gimenez from a incisive diagonal ball from Carlos Rodriguez with 14 minutes left.
Nothing short of playing top-class teams from Central or South America could prepare an MLS team to play strong Mexican foe in midseason form. D.C. will do the next best thing after it hosts Chivas Guadalajara in the first leg; it will travel to the Mexico nearly two weeks before the second leg, so the players can acclimate to the weather and altitude as best they can.
Houston has three games scheduled in the Carolina Challenge Cup for the last week of March, and those games – just two weeks before the start of the regular season – will be reasonably competitive. The players will certainly be sharper heading into the second leg against Pachuca.
But the plodding pace – not just of play but of mind – in MLS will always work against league teams going up against Mexican foes. The tempo of some Mexican League matches, especially those played in the hotter months, can be leisurely, but as Toluca showed last night in running Boca Juniors off the park, 2-0, in the Libertadores Cup, Mexican teams can crank up the crispness when they want to.