Union fall to Houston Dynamo

The Philadelphia Union lost to the Houston Dynamo, 1-0, this past Saturday on the road.

A second-half goal from Ricardo Clark was enough to give the home side all three points. Despite the loss, the Union (7-6-6) are still tied for third place in the Eastern Conference with 27 points.

“This is a tough league; you’re going to win some and you’re going to lose some, especially when you play in these kinds of conditions with our third game in eight days,” manager John Hackworth said after the match. “I thought our team put out a fantastic effort. It just wasn’t there tonight.”

With both teams missing several key players to injury or players being called up to the CONCACAF Gold Cup tournament, each side was forced to shift around the starting 11. With Jack McInerney (U.S.) and Keon Daniel (Trinidad & Tobago) away for national team duty — and Michael Farfan, Danny Cruz, Kleberson and Michael Lahoud out due to injury — the Union started two players for the first time this year in Antoine Hoppenot and Aaron Wheeler, who made his first MLS start.

After an opening 45 minutes with good opportunities on both sides, the two sides went to the locker rooms scoreless. Perhaps the Union’s best chance came from Wheeler, as the forward fired a shot on Houston goalkeeper Tally Hall, who just got a hand on it to keep it out of the net. The ball bounced into the center of the box, where an oncoming Conor Casey fired a shot that went just high.

“We tried to come here and force the game. We tried to press Houston; we knew they were going to come at us hard,” Hackworth said. “When you do that, you have to be able to put the ball on the ground and possess a little bit and we didn’t do a great job of that in the first half.”