When the New York Red Bulls lost to the Chicago Fire a few weeks ago, fans were upset. The team showed they could be exploited by some fast wing play. So when the Fire opened up a 2 goal lead on a dubious penalty kick and some poor defending of a Chicago counter-attack, fans wouldn't be blamed for thinking this was going to be a worse match than the recent loss.
The Red Bulls however were not ready to give up in the first half. Sacha Kljestan put in a good through ball under pressure to Bradley Wright-Phillips, who toe poked the pass beyond Sean Johnson. Mike Grella would equalize later in the first half with a shot that got a lucky deflection off of a Chicago defender, which put it out of the reach of Johnson. The teams would go in at halftime level at 2 goals apiece.
The second half started slower than the first half ended, but the Red Bulls controlled the game more, forcing the issue and the Chicago defense to react. They were only able to hold on for so long as Lloyd Sam was fouled twice in the box within a couple of minutes (only 1 was called), with the second foul leading to a penalty kick. Sacha Kljestan, the now regular penalty taker stepped up and put one just left of center with Johnson diving the opposite direction to make it 3-2.
3 Thoughts
Defense vs Speed
Again Chicago showed that the Red Bulls could be exploited by a little bit of speed. It's not something you can naturally defend against unless you can leave a few people back. Given that the team likes to have its fullbacks join in the attack, it'll leave the center backs in a position to deal with speed. The Red Bulls needs to find a way to deal with it in the future.
UniMas....come on
During the first half of UniMas' broadcast, if you were using #MLSSAP, you could hear the English broadcast team. You could also hear the Spanish broadcast team. While it covered up some of the mistakes the English guys make, it's annoying to hear two audio streams at the same time.
Speaking of mistakes: "Max McCarty", "Dax McCarthy", "Kaymar Lawrence", "Jergen Klinsmann". Those were the obvious mispronunciations I caught during the broadcast. Don't get me wrong, I screw up names all the time on Red Bull Rant, but I'm not a professional sportscaster.
Attendance
Someone somewhere will point to the attendance at this game as a negative. While it looks bad, it's just proof that MLS has no idea in how scheduling works in the NYC market. 7 pm on a Friday? Good luck. If MLS was bigger maybe, but it's a tough ask when the weather is still somewhat decent, and if the traffic doesn't get to you first.
