Fox Man's Grade Book: Manotas, Elis take care of business and advance in CCL

Andres Naranjo
Feb 27, 2019
3 min read

I could use last night's rain as a pun for the amount of goals scored over the past two legs, but I chose not to. Instead, I will describe the wet fireworks you may have missed of another Concachampions at BBVA Compass Stadium.

Key Notes:

• With a 2-1 win and a 3-1 aggregate score over CD Guastatoya, Houston Dynamo advanced to the 2019 Concacaf Champions League Quarterfinals.

• Mauro Manotas opened his Concacaf Champions League account with two goals scored in ten minutes after coming off the bench in the second half.

• The Dynamo are set to make their fifth Concacaf Champions League Quarterfinals appearance and improved their all-time international record to 21W-13D-12L.

• Houston will take on Mexico's Tigres UANL for a spot in the Semifinals, with Leg 1 in Houston and Leg 2 in Monterrey.

With Leg 2 expected to kick things off at 7:00 PM CST, the rain did not forgive the fans that dared to defy Houston traffic on a weekday. As it took me roughly an hour and thirty minutes to reach Downtown from Katy, I realized how difficult it is for the Dynamo to have a solid attendance on weekdays without having favorable circumstances other than relevancy.

Dead-horse topics aside, the match was delayed for two hours and thirty minutes from the initial kickoff time due to lightning in the area and field maintenance, and we would avoid a reschedule conundrum to everyone's relief as the match went on as planned.

CD Guastatoya surprised me by playing some entertaining soccer despite fielding a five-man back line and having the pressure to erase Houston's goal advantage on aggregate. They managed to absorb scoring threats from the hosts in numerous occasions and almost capitalizing on successful counters, not to mention the many attempts to force mistakes out of "Kiki" Struna and Figueroa which would be the main cause of the first goal of the night, Aaron Navarro would take advantage of such after many attempts to break inside the box off a good pass by Isaac Acuña and would tie things up on aggregate and inject life to themselves and the visiting fans in attendance.

Wilmer Cabrera, one of the honorable mentions for the night, took action and subbed in Alberth Elis, Mauro Manotas, and Boniek Garcia to terrorize a winded Guastatoya and they left them in the dust for the most part. Elis would keep triggering runs off the flank to the point that Manotas was bound to score, and the Colombian Ching would score a free kick that was deflected by the manned-wall but is still good enough to be regarded as a golazo.

The rush led by Manotas would shut down the visitors mentally and the Dynamo would hold on to the lead and mark a date against Mexican giants Tigres UANL.

Fox MVP of the Night:

• Mauro Manotas: everyone was worried of the "goal drought" in Leg 1, and Manotas responded by scoring his first two goals in the competition after coming off the bench. Coming off a career year, his vision and placement of the ball is the reason why he is going to surpass Brian Ching in the all-time scoring list.

Honorable Mentions:

• Alberth Elis: just like Manotas, he shifted the course of the match as soon as he came on. Elis proved once again that you are going to have to triple-man him if you want to get the ball from him, and he provided that killing run to assist Manotas and ice Guastatoya.

• Matias Vera: he had a pretty quiet evening but I felt his presence everywhere as he was responsible for killing Guastatoya's buildup in many occasions.

• Wilmer Cabrera: he saw it coming.