Red Bulls Second Half Beats Orlando City

After a tough loss in the Bronx on Sunday night, the Red Bulls came back home to face an Orlando City side that was looking to get a big road win since they acquired Dom Dwyer from Sporting Kansas City. But sadly was without him due to nasal reconstruction surgery and Jonathan Spector is out with an injury.

After Luis Rivas opened the scoring in the 18th minute for Orlando City, the defense decided to help out the Red Bulls by deflecting in a Tyler Adams cross into their own net. Leo Pereira tried to stop the ball, but he ended up deflecting the shot past his keeper Joe Bendik and the game was leveled at one a piece.

The Red Bulls took control for good in the second half as they found a way to stop Orlando City from scoring and put two of their own past Bendik. Bradley Wright-Phillips continued his scoring tear on Orlando as he converted in the 60th minute.

After Sean Davis passed the ball to Alex Muyl, he would take it down the far side and played a brilliant ball to lead BWP for his fourteenth goal of the season as well as his 83rd career MLS goal. He tucked it inside the near post for the game winner.

But Sean Davis wanted one himself. He wanted to get on the score sheet and did so with a magical bending ball that splashed inside the far post to make it a two goal game.

It started from a simple throw in by Kemar Lawrence along the near side. After Davis Collected the ball in the 80th minute, he took a couple of steps towards the middle of the pitch and ripped it hard for his second of the season.

This match looked like it was game, set and match. That’s when frustrations boiled over as Orlando City was getting very upset, angry and was ready to take it out on the Red Bulls. Jorge Gonzalez was dealing cards and he was the one trying to calm the tensions.

But there was that one moment when it looked like the officiating crew either on the field or now inside the video booth might have made an error, or maybe did their job correctly interpreting the laws of the game.

VAR (Video Assistant Referee) was used for the first time at Red Bull Arena, but as far as this reporter knows the third time in league action. Aurelien Collin who came back from injury as a second half substitute use to play for Orlando City before coming to the Red Bulls.

Kaka playfully snuck behind Collin and grabbed him by the face while Jorge Gonzalez was trying to calm the situation. These two players are former teammates and on replay it looked like both of them were joking around with each other.

That caught the eye of second assistant Daniel Belleau and VAR Guido Gonzalez Jr. that assisted Jorge Gonzalez to issuing the Red Card to Kaka and sending him off for violent conduct.

While it was interesting to see VAR in action and what certainly happened playfully or not is considered violent conduct, I believe this was the wrong decision, but at the same time Kaka shouldn’t have done this while tempers were heating up.

The one player who had a fantastic game for the Red Bulls was defender Michael Amir Murillo who made three solid run back clean tackles to prevent Orlando City to get another goal. Since coming over to the Red Bulls he has looked comfortable and his play looked solid.

“You know, we all think very highly of Amir here and he has flexibility to playing in that center-back spot. He can play out wide right. He’s a bright guy. He’s a talented guy. He’s athletic. He’s a competitor.” Said Jesse Marsch.

“It’s just been trying to get him to ramp up a bit so that he understands how we play. And now once he’s grasped on to that, I think he’s been very good for us. He’s a guy that we are going to count on, no doubt.”

And now it’s time to move on to the next big match for the club and that is the Semi-Finals of the Lamar Hunt US open Cup as the Red Bulls will face FC Cincinnati at Nippert Stadium on the campus of the University of Cincinnati.

The final will be at Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City, Kansas on September 20th against Sporting Kansas City. So get ready for the biggest match in the club history.