The locker room Sunday night after the Dynamo's loss to the San Jose Earthquakes was filled with frustration and exasperation. I was fortunate enough to speak with Head Coach Dominic Kinnear, defender Eddie Robinson and midfielder Brad Davis. Here are their thoughts on the loss, playoff hopes and the future of this club.
Frustration
Brad Davis
'Tough, probably one of the tougher ones, if not the toughest one all year.'
Eddie Robinson
'If you want a definition of our season, just show somebody the tape of this game. I don't know if you can play any better and come away with zero points. You expect in all sports, college sports, professional sports, amateur sports, little kid sports, you expect to have games like this over the course of the season. It just happens and things don't go your way. But you know, for us, you can probably count 18 games that we've had like that this year. And it's frustrating, and the lack of points surely isn't for lack of effort. I think you saw that tonight. I think for anybody that's watched our training sessions over the last three weeks they'd be pretty impressed at how hard we're going and how hard we're still going to go over these next two weeks that we have to think about the next seven games.'
'It's just frustrating. You can't do much more than we did tonight. Hopefully the guys can walk away with their heads held high, but it's just difficult after a game like tonight.'
Coach Kinnear
'There's lots of circumstances why we're disappointed. It puts the playoff picture very bleak. We lost another home game. It was a game that we should've had well in hand, even before they got the second goal. The first 45 minutes probably the best half we played all year, attacking wise. But you still have to score goals. If you don't score goals then it's all for nothing. And that's what we got out of the game, nothing.'
'So if you count chances then it tilts in our favor. But, at the end of the day they hit theirs on target and we missed ours by inches and the ones you miss by inches don't count.'
Dominating The Game
Brad Davis
'I think we were dominating before that [San Jose scored the first goal] to be totally honest with you. To score right before half time to tie it up is always good. To be on other side it's a bit disheartening, so we felt we would come out the second half and do the same thing, which I think we did. They got one more opportunity on the break and they scored. It's kind of the way things have been going against us all year; two chances two goals. We had probably actually more chances in this game then we had all year. They just aren't going in.'
Coach Kinnear
'Probably the first time all year I'm completely shocked we didn't come out of the game with something. [We had] more chances to go ahead to extend the lead, to tie it, whatever you want to say we had chances galore and what bit us hard in the rear tonight was not scoring goals.'
'[Dominating early] It's true. And even before they scored; it was their first foray into our attacking area and they took advantage of a bit of a lack of intensity on our part. And even the second goal. I don't know what the shots were but as far as their dangerous opportunities in the second half, they took advantage of a ball that we played pretty much directly to them and then ran through midfield. It's tough to walk off the field.'
Playoff Hopes
Brad Davis
'[Playing well but not winning] is the way things are going and we know where we are right now. We need to pretty much win out; that's what's ahead of us.'
Eddie Robinson
'You look at possible points and we are probably going to have to win our last seven games to put us in the mix. Can this team do it? I think so, but it's a difficult task. Every year this league gets better and every year the teams get better.'
Coach Kinnear
'This is a heavy one because if we win this then we are three points behind San Jose. I think that at 29 points they probably hold the last playoff spot, but now it has just bounced up to 32.'