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The Red Bulls may have been just as stunned as Jay Heaps and the New England Revolution crowd when Gonzalo Veron scored the go-ahead goal to secure a rare road win at Gillette Stadium.
But while that match was just a mid-season league game, tonight's match will be something very different.
The Red Bulls are playing in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Quarter-finals, a spot in the tournament that has seen the team endure just as much heartbreak as any other big spot, and will face a Revs side that is practically foaming at the mouth looking for revenge. Luckily, two key players will be back and ready to play for this one: star defender Aurelien Collin and rising star Tyler Adams.
The Revs, as mentioned earlier, have the loser's edge in this one and will make the game as hard as possible for the Red Bulls to keep up. But they will not be hosting this game at Gillette Stadium, and will instead host it at Jordan Field at Harvard University - a venue with significantly fewer seats. If nothing else, crowd noise should not be a major factor in this one.
Here is the RBNY predicted XI vs New England:
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GK Ryan Meara
DF Connor Lade
DF Aurelien Collin
DF Aaron Long
DF Sal Zizzo
DM Tyler Adams
DM Felipe
AM Alex Muyl
AM Sacha Kljestan
AM Daniel Royer
FW Bradley Wright-Phillips
*
Though the team typically plays its reserve side in this tournament, that has not been the case so far. Against NYC FC in the fourth round and against the Philadelphia Union in the Round of 16, the Red Bulls played just about as strong a unit they could play at the time. It seems clear that head coach Jesse Marsch wants to make a strong run at the Cup.
Given that for a good portion of last week's game the Revs looked like the better team, Marsch will really need to pull out all of the stops in this one. And that could result in even more tinkering with the lineup than that bizarre 5-3-1-1 formation we saw against Philadelphia.
What do you think?