Week 1 RBNY MLS Fantasy Recap: Sacha Kljestan, Dax McCarty

The MLS season kicked off on Sunday at 1:30pm with the reigning Supporter's Shield winners, New York Red Bulls, hosting Toronto FC.  Toronto FC got the better side of a 2-0 victory behind goals from Sebastian Giovinco and Marco Delgado in the second half.

Even though they didn't score in the first half, the Red Bulls created some quality chances, most notably by Lloyd Sam, who fired a shot over the crossbar after a nifty feed from Bradley Wright-Phillips.  There were a few other half-chances, but they were either cleared by Toronto, or missed the mark.  Here are how the best Red Bulls performed in Week 1:

Sacha Kljestan (MID, 4 points): Kljestan did what he could to move RBNY's offense forward, but Toronto bunkered down too much around the 18 all game long.  Many of his effort were stifled before they could get something going.  What he did contribute was aggressiveness.  He was fouled three times in the offensive half to grab two bonus points.

Dax McCarty (MID, 4 points): Dax's day focused around helping Gideon Baah and Ronald Zubar to keep Giovinco at bay.  It worked for most of the game.  Not his fault for the PK he scored, but that helped take the wind out of his team's sails, setting up the second goal in stoppage time.  Dax was limited on his ability to get forward, but that helped his defensive fantasy score.

Honorable Mention - six players with 3 points each: Luis Robles, Felipe Martins, Mike Grella, Lloyd Sam, Gideon Baah and Bradley Wright-Phillips.  The best player on this list is Baah.  Even though he only had 3 points, like Dax & Kljestan, two of the points were bonus points.  On a few occasions, the RBNY newcomer single-handedly stopped Giovinco in his tracks.  He ended the game with 5 interceptions and 3 tackles.

The Red Bulls are back in action next week against their second Canadian team in as many games, a strong Montreal Impact team.  Even though they were missing Didier Drogba, they still beat the Vancouver Whitecaps 3-2.