BEVERLY HILLS, April 17, (THEWILL) – American midfielder, José Guillermo “Memo” Rodríguez, of home side Houston Dynamo scored the opening goal of the Major League Soccer (MLS) season while Maximiliano Urruti contributed to the scoreline in the second period as Dynamo beat the San Jose Earthquakes 2-1 on a rainy Friday night in Houston, Texas.
The season kicked off on Friday night with a pair of games, the Dynamo versus Earthquakes at Houston and Minnesota against the Seattle Sounders in Seattle. Meanwhile, the league’s newest team, Austin FC, is billed to play its inaugural game on Saturday against Los Angeles FC away from home.
In the Dynamo game, it took nine minutes after the half hour mark for the opener of the season, when Rodríguez raced to Joe Corona’s through ball and bent a shot around James Thomas Marcinkowski in the San Jose goal. Urruti made it double, when, left unmarked at the penalty spot in the 56th minute, easily slotted home Tyler Pasher’s cross.
It could have been an opening day brace for Rodríguez but his goal-bound shot rattled off the crossbar in the first minute after halftime while Urruti forced a diving save ten minutes from time to keep the numbers low.
Before then, Paul Marie had pulled one back for the visitors. His 74th minute curling shot from distance found its way to the back of the net to halve the deficit. Chris Wondolowski had an open-net opportunity on a breakaway in the 84th but his tap-in attempt went wide, as the Earthquakes lost the opportunity to grab at least a point from the opening game.
In keeping with the health and safety protocols in place, Houston announced tickets and approximately 6,500, were sold out with 30% capacity at BBVA Stadium, which may be the order of the day as professional football resumes across the league.
The MLS estimated losses at nearly $1 billion last season, mostly the result of playing in empty stadiums and charter flights for teams as they tried to get a hang of operating within the pandemic. While that will likely improve, the league is expecting another financial hit this year. As a result, MLS invoked the force majeure clause in the collective bargaining agreement from 2020.
After a rather contentious back-and-forth —the players had already agreed to concessions in 2020— a new agreement was struck in February that will run through the 2027 season, to help teams manage the financial deficits brought upon their budgets by the operating difficulties during the pandemic.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
