RSL recovers victory with late Julio goal, beats Dynamo 2-1

Real Salt Lake managed a home victory against Houston Dynamo on goals from two wingers — an early one from Justin Meram in the first 10 minutes, and a late one from Anderson Julio just minutes prior to stoppage time.

RSL opened the scoring early on, notching a 1-0 lead in the 6th minute through Justin Meram’s first goal of the year. Bobby Wood found himself free in the middle of the park, finding Justin Meram with a perfect, simple pass to Justin Meram, who finished quite easily past Houston Dynamo goalkeeper Marko Maric. The play started with some deft defensive play from Albert Rusnak and Joni Menendez, with Menendez winning the ball from Fafa Picault quite nicely.

Houston Dynamo generated a spate of chances through the first half, but they they were consistently unraveled by poor decision-making in the attack. It’s the sort of game that called out for Corey Baird — but thankfully for RSL, an injury kept him from making a fourth appearance in the 2021 regular season against his former club.

Houston found an equalizer early in the second half, scoring from a corner in the 51st minute as Fafa Picault beat RSL’s Toni Datkovic and Marcelo Silva at the top of the six-yard box with startling ease.

Anderson Julio put RSL back in the lead in the 88th minute, finishing past Maric with a low, driven shot from just inside the box. It was quite a remarkable late turnaround for RSL, who had looked fairly dreadful until Julio’s entrance into the match.