Last night seemed a formality for the Houston Dynamo.
They put three past Troy Perkins en route to the Conference Semi-Finals against the Red Bulls.
It looked easy. The Impact looked sluggish. And later, the sluggishness boiled over into frustration when Andres Romero tried to kick the ball out from under Kofi Sarkodie (if you're being kind, you could just as easily say Romero's foot was intended for balls of the anatomical variety).
The Impact, already down a man thanks to two yellow cards racked up by Nelson Rivas in just 35 minutes, ended the game down to 8 men after Romero and Marco Di Vaio were assessed red. Di Vaio got his after he jumped into the ensuing fracas.
A dominant win, to be sure, but it's likely a bit too early to say the Dynamo of old are back and poised for (another) playoff run. The Impact were bad last night. Very, very bad.
Unfortunately, we'll only be able to tell if that's the case after the upcoming home-and-home against the Red Bulls that kicks off Sunday.