RSL vs. Houston Dynamo: Four winners, four losers

Winner: Justen Glad

He scored a goal, and it was really quite nice! He put himself in the right place at the right time, and for that, he deserves plaudits.

Loser: All of the defense

It’s hard to overstate the importance of defending on the counter, especially when your team is attacking extremely well. We got beat on the counterattack, but we had time to deal with it. We had numbers. We were just simply bad, and that stings.

Loser: Pablo Ruiz

Ruiz was in an opportunity to commit a tactical foul, eat a yellow, and stop Urruti from breaking away on the Houston goal. He couldn’t — despite trying — but it could have stopped things from getting bad.

Winner: Albert Rusnak

Albert Rusnak had a great 66 minutes. His corners were spot-on, his passing was penetrating, and his play generally was helping RSL create chances. That’s two consecutive matches of being pretty good, but we’ve only earned one point. It hurts.

Loser: Bobby Wood

This spot isn’t just for Wood and his performance — although it wasn’t amazing, he wasn’t played to well. This is more for the entire team failing to play to his strengths.

Winner: Maikel Chang

I might give Chang the player of the match here. (I bet Megan will, actually, in her column.) He created chance after chance, he won corners, he pushed play forward, and he was good in tight conditions. When he left the match, we got considerably worse.

Loser: Anderson Julio

Julio started with RSL with real strength. But now? Well, let’s just say I don’t think he’s going to be starting when Jony Menendez comes. Or maybe he will, who knows. But he’s got a bit of an uphill battle in front of him.

Winner: Damir Kreilach

Kreilach got his head on everything in the box, and he forced two excellent saves. The RSL vice captain was excellent, and he — alongside Maikel Chang — kept RSL dangerous for the first and second thirds of the match.