Win worth wait for victorious Orange

WASHINGTON -- The game took seven weeks to the day and a few extra hours to complete, but the Houston Dynamo finally secured the three points against D.C. United with a 2-0 win at RFK Stadium. Officially, the game took 4 hours and 44 minutes to complete and ended at 12:20 a.m. ET.

"I don't think I have ever been playing at midnight," said Brian Ching, who scored the Dynamo's second goal in the 79th minute. "Crazy, crazy game. I'm glad it's over and I'm glad we got the three points -- we really needed it."

This match was originally scheduled for June 4 but was postponed after 16 minutes due to a rainstorm that left the field unplayable. The match was then rescheduled for Tuesday but was again postponed after another driving storm left RFK Stadium and the surrounding areas without any power for most of the night.

The rain started again as the second half commenced and as it got progressively heavier, the lights went out again in the old ground at 8:47 p.m., 54 minutes into the match. The lights returned and went out again, then lightning joined the party, and finally after multiple inspections by the officiating crew, the match finally restarted at 11:41 p.m.

"The field in some areas was not playable," said Dynamo coach Dominic Kinnear, who was playing with Tampa Bay when their match with D.C. United was delayed more than an hour on July 4, 2000. "I understand the reason for wanting to play this game and I understand the reason for us probably not wanting to play the game."

The brand new turf at the old stadium took a beating as the rain continued. The Dynamo got a dry goal from Brian Mullan in the first half and the soggy one from Ching in the second to easily defeat United for the second time in four days. Houston defeated United in similar fashion 3-1 on Saturday to advance to the semifinals of SuperLiga.

Neither has a date on their respective calendars where they could legitimately slip in another game with both teams participating in the CONCACAF Champions League and United still alive in the U.S. Open Cup.

"This game had to get in for both sides," said Kinnear. "The field crew did a great job trying to get as much water off the field as possible. The rain kept on coming. Everyone was trying their hardest to get the game in. ... I'm glad this game is behind us."

The combination of the treacherous field conditions and the nearly 3-hour delay created less than ideal circumstances for a any player to perform effectively.

"I don't think a 2-hour delay for a professional athlete is necessarily the best way for our bodies to be treated ... it's definitely going to affect my body more than these young bucks," said defender Craig Waibel. "There may not be better ways but I don't know if tonight was the right way as far the veteran guys -- and especially the two guys that are expected to represent our league tomorrow at their best have very little opportunity to do that."

Dwayne De Rosario and goalkeeper Pat Onstad are heading to their homeland to play in the MLS All-Star game Thursday night in Toronto against West Ham United.

"I don't think these guys bodies are meant to go and then stop for a couple of hours and then go again. It's almost like youth soccer when you play two games in a day," said Kinnear.

The field conditions, relatively dry in some places while still extraordinarily wet in others, afforded neither team the ability to play clean, fluid soccer after the restart.

"There were a couple of instances where the ball stops dead and the guys are running for it, or guys slip and that normally doesn't happen," said Kinnear. "Especially when the ball stops dead in a big puddle of water and funny enough most of the puddles of water were down in our end so the margin for error was a little higher."

"It's probably the easiest thing," said Ching about his goal, which came from a header. "You don't have to dribble or work with the ball on the ground."

Stuart Holden had seen conditions like these playing in his native Scotland before coming to the U.S. more than a decade ago.

"I played in probably worse but it's never good to play soccer (in conditions like this), you can't play soccer," he said. "A couple of times you could pass it around but other times it's getting caught and tackles are flying in -- it becomes dangerous."