Flashback 2010: Ángel strikes at the death

I was hoping to do some flashbacks this year to look back 10 years to 2010, when I was in my second year as the radio play-by-play broadcaster for the Houston Dynamo. Now with sports shut down and so much of life seemingly on hold, it seems like the right time to aim for a series of retrospectives, looking back at some memorable or quirky moments from my career in sports.
 
June 2, 2010
First, the play. I posted the full game highlights to YouTube, but start with the big moment: Juan Pablo Ángel hitting a 35-yard free kick in off the post and the goalkeeper's back! to give the New York Red Bulls a dramatic win in their new soccer-specific stadium.


Incredible moment. As someone who grew up rooting for the MetroStars and now covers the Red Bulls semi-regularly, it's a special moment to have witnessed.

Except it was heartbreaking for my team, the guys I worked with and worked for, and part of a particularly maddening stretch of games.

A long time coming
Most soccer fans in New Jersey and New York know the long-running saga that predated the Red Bull era of the area's Major League Soccer club. The MetroStars (the New York/New Jersey was dropped after only 2 seasons) played in enormous, way-too-big-for-that-era-of-American-soccer Giants Stadium (I always enjoyed hearing, "Estadio de los Gigantes" on some broadcasts en español). 15,000 fans was a decent crowd for that era of MLS, but stick it in 70,000-seat Giants Stadium, and the atmosphere was pointless.

The atmosphere was so bad that I refused to attend my first professional soccer game in that stadium (more on my first pro game later this month), and it was clear very few MetroStars games would feel like an event until they had their own stadium. Over the years, the team unveiled plan after plan for a future stadium, often promising details in "60 to 90 days," only to have something fall through.

I interned for the club in 2002, right in the middle of all of this, and we literally had multiple staff meetings in which we heard, "Butts in seats. Butts in seats. Butts in seats - equals - stadium!"

Red Bull swoops
The MetroStars were my team at that point, having grown up there and worked there. But then Red Bull came in with an initial plan to ignore the history of the club. At the same time, my adopted hometown of Houston was welcoming a new team, one I could see in person and try to support into a success.

It was an easy transition to make, made easier still when the Dynamo won MLS Cup in their first two seasons in Houston and when I went to work for the club. So every Dynamo-Red Bulls game was a huge one for me, especially the 2008 and 2009 games when I got to go back to Giants Stadium with my new team, finally calling a game there in 2009.

Fancy new digs
But 2010 meant flying home to New Jersey to call a game in a soccer-specific stadium, of all things! No more 60-90 days, no more dead atmosphere. No more high-bouncing artificial turf. Major League Soccer in a vibrant atmosphere, on grass, 30 minutes away from my parents' house: This was something special.

Red Bull Arena had opened less than three months prior when we (the Dynamo) arrived in 2010 for a mid-week game. I was excited to see the place, even with its surprisingly bland gray exterior and some of the quirks of the broadcast level. I distinctly remember setting up my equipment on a folding table at the front of my designated booth, only to realize that when I stood behind it, I couldn't see large portions of the field's corners. Because the booth was on the suite level, it had the same dimensions as the suites, with none of the seats that fronted them. So I had blank rows of concrete in front of me, and I took advantage by hopping over the windowsill and calling the game while leaning back against the booth. With the table behind me, I don't think I looked at my notes much that evening!

Emotions running high
It was also an emotional time from the team's perspective. Our leader in so many ways, the talisman of soccer in Houston since the club's opening game in April 2006, was Brian Ching. Just a week earlier, he had been left off the United States roster for the upcoming World Cup, a decision which was just utterly shocking in our world. I had been brainstorming content we could do around Chingy and former Dynamo player Stu Holden going to the World Cup, and the thought of Ching not making the team never entered my mind.

Chingy faced the music - and the media - upon returning to Houston in one of the more painful media scrums I've ever witnessed. He answered the questions head-on and did his best to move forward despite one of the biggest disappointments of his career. And in his first game back, the Saturday before this trip to New Jersey, he came off the bench and scored "in HIS house, Robertson Stadium!" as I screamed on the radio call, as we took the lead on the expansion Philadelphia Union, only to give it up and lose, stunningly, in stoppage time.

The game
So emotions were running high, for the organization, the team, the players, and even this radio broadcaster.

Then, during the first half of the game against New York, Red Bulls fans chanted, "U.S. reject" at Brian Ching. As somebody who had spent the last four-plus years rooting for, meeting, working with, admiring, and supporting Chingy, it stung me, and I'm sure it angered every teammate in orange that night.

It was Chingy who tied that game in the 65th minute, breaking the offside trap to finish a pass from Bobby Boswell. And it felt just as emotional, at least for those of us in the building, as his goal at home against Philadelphia had. "He's not a Dynamo reject, he's their main man," was my reference on the broadcast.

Just like the Philadelphia game, however, there was one more twist of fate. The Red Bulls got this free kick DEEP into stoppage time, from WAY out, with no time left. You don't often shoot from that range. But Juan Pablo Ángel was the OG Designated Player, a big-name player who came over from Europe at age 31 and more than justified the pricetag. He scored double-digit goals in all four seasons with the Red Bulls and was, quite simply, a cut above.

I still didn't think he would shoot from there, or that he could beat the great Pat Onstad from that far out. But with the help of the goalpost and a friendly bounce, he did, and it's one of the great regular-season moments I've ever witnessed in MLS.

But it was heartbreaking, too. Every coin has two sides, right? Now you know my side from June 2, 2010.

"Brian Ching got it!" - Flashing back to 2009

Hard to believe this was 10 years ago. Although it's safe to say a LOT has changed! A special moment to call near the end of my first season as Houston Dynamo radio broadcaster (I don't sound quite ready for it, do I?), even if partner James Clarkson got a little more involved with the call than is typically kosher.

This was overtime in the 2009 MLS Cup Playoffs after Houston and Seattle had played back-to-back scoreless ties. President George H.W. Bush and 27,000+ on hand in an electric atmosphere at the since demolished Robertson Stadium.

One hell of a moment, though, and a privilege to call it:

Aloha, mahalo to Chingy

Checking out BBVA Compass Stadium in progress.(photo by Nigel Brooks)

Brian Ching was one of my favorite players before the San Jose Earthquakes moved to Houston and before I began working for the Dynamo, so instead of writing a long, emotional column about his retirement, I'm going to tell a few anecdotes and post some videos paying tribute to a guy for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect.

I think my favorite Brian Ching story comes from my first year working for the Dynamo in 2008. I was new to the team and the players, and Brian was a very intimidating presence to me. Before one game, I was assigned to tell Brian about a pre-game interview with a television partner and coordinate it. In this case, that meant getting him from the locker room and walking him across the field to the interview location. So I made some awkward small chat as we walked, me in khakis and dress shoes, he in shorts and flip-flops. When we got to the camera, a starter from the opposing team (a guy who had been in the league for a couple of years) was still doing his interview, so Brian sat on the Houston bench to wait. After a few minutes of looking around and watching the interview, he turned to me and said, "Who is that?" I responded with the player's name. He looked at me with a blank expression. We were about to play this team in maybe 90 minutes, and he did not know one of their starting midfielders!

It's not that he was unprepared or disrespectful, but something about his intense focus on his role, his game, and his team. Ching scored that night, and Houston won the game.

I also love reminding people that Ching was, to my knowledge, the first North American athlete to be fined for using Twitter. Ching is not usually a particularly outspoken quote or a lightning rod for controversy, but he was the first. It happened in 2009, while he was with the U.S. national team for the Gold Cup, and Seattle tied the game against Houston on a controversial goal-line call. Ching Tweeted "ref is a cheat," I think referring to the far-side linesman who signaled for the goal, and later paid the price.

Watching Ching deal with his exclusion from the 2010 World Cup squad was one of the hardest things I've ever seen somebody go through, but he handled it amazingly well. It made me proud every time he answered a question about it, candidly admitting his disappointment, and every time he scored or made a big play that summer, sticking it to opposing fans who needled him with the "U.S. reject" chant.

I respect and like Ching, on the field and off, and watching him lift the Eastern Conference championship trophy as Houston's captain in 2011 was one of my favorite moments with the team. I'll miss watching him play, but I'm glad he still plans to be a part of MLS, and I hope I get the chance to work with him in the future.

In addition to the great work from HoustonDynamo.com and the strong interview by CSN Houston's Sebastian Salazar looking back at his career, here are two additional videos worth watching, one from MLSsoccer.com and one from yours truly. Thanks, Brian.

MLSsoccer.com:

Yardley YouTube channel:

Understanding the Seattle-Houston rivalry

Courtesy Nigel Brooks

With Seattle and Houston playing on NBC Sports tonight, there’s been a lot of talk of a Western Conference rivalry being rekindled, if only for a game. There definitely was a rivalry, and we’ll find out tonight if there still is. To appreciate it, you have to understand a few things about why it exists in the first place. Most of these origins center on the 2009 season, in which the teams met five times, four of which felt epic for very different reasons. Since then, they’ve played only four times, so more than half of their head-to-head history came that year, which is why the rivalry may dissipate somewhat with only one game per season.

1. Controversy