Cold home opener won on own goal, 1:0
March 11, 2017
The history of this team is littered with memorable home openers, like the first one of them all (let's not talk about it), the RSL monsoon in 2005, Ronald Waterreus' hypothermia in 2007, or, perhaps, the one in 2012, when Thierry Henry ran circles around the Colorado defense. It would be very hard to add this game to that list, unless you want to talk about the bitter cold.
It wasn't a bad game, however; Metro dominated throughout, but had to settle for a loan tally, an own goal late in the first half. It was only the second time in team history that they won 1:0 on an own goal.
The opponent was once again Colorado (somehow, Metro opened at home against the Rapids for the third time in six seasons). More important was one of the opponents: Tim Howard, who played against Metro for the first time in his career. The still-beloved netminder acquitted well for the visitors.
Jesse Marsch made only one change from last week, giving Derrick Etienne his first MLS start in place of Alex Muyl. That means that Aurelien Collin remained rooted to the bench due to the currently-preferred defensive pairing of Aaron Long and Damien Perrinelle.
The lone goal came in the 45th minute, after a Sal Zizzo cross that was headed for Daniel Royer. The ball deflected off Colorado's Eric Miller and past Howard.
Luis Robles, who set the MLS record with his 142nd consecutive full game, did his job to preserve the shutout by coming up with a big kick save midway in the second half. Outside of that chance, Colorado rarely threatened.
So, absolutely nothing memorable, except, perhaps, for just-signed Fredrik Gulbrandsen, who made his debut late in the game. But, considering how some of these other home openers went, perhaps we shouldn't worry about it being memorable, as long as Metro gets the three points...
Lineup: Robles, Lawrence, Long, Perrinelle, Zizzo, Martins, Davis, Kljestan, Royer, Etienne, Wright-Phillips. Subs: Grella, Collin, Gulbrandsen.
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