Red Bulls Rebound against the Impact

The New York Red Bulls knew they had to have a win right away after their elimination in the CONCACAF Champions League against Guadalajara on tuesdsay night, sothey were able to rebound and defeat the Montreal Impact by a final of three goals to one.

After not scoring for over 180 minutes in the Semi-Finals Bradley Wright-Phillips wanted to get back on the scoresheet in the worst way and did so in the 5th minute. Florian Valot intercepted the ball after he was gifted to open the attack from Victor Cabrera.

Valot makes a perfect pass with one touch and led Wright-Phillips into the ball, then gets inside the area to blast that ball past Impact keeper Evan Bush to score his fourth of the season, seventh in all competitions this season. But Bradley wants to praise Valot for his hard work.

“It’s all Flo (on that play). He hasn’t played many first team games but he’s very intelligent, he can do everything good.” said BWP, “He’s good he’s fit he’s got an eye for a pass and an eye for a goal. So he’s very easy to play with since he showed up with us.”

After a stunning free kick strike from Jeisson Vargas to level the match in the 33rd minute, the Red Bulls couldn’t wait to get to halftime and try to discuss about staying positive and doing the right things to get back out there to start the second half.

That’s when Kaku struck and was able to get his second of the season in all competitions, but most importantly his first career league goal. 57th minute and it looked like BWP was going to get his second of the match, but Evan Bush came off his line to block that chance.

The rebound however was close enough for Wright-Phillips to track it, then he saw Alejandro Romero Gamarra from the corner of his eye and gave him a solid pass, then Kaku chips the ball over the head of Bush and splashes the inside of the back post.

Getting the full 90 today Jesse Marsch was asked why he wasn’t available to start the 2nd leg of the Semi-Finals three days before. “Well, I think more than anything, this was Kaku’s best game by a mile, right, and he’s worked hard to try to understand tactically what we’re trying to get out of him. He’s worked hard to understand now what the reactions are, where he’s needed, what kind of final plays. Even on Thursday, we used to kind of put him in situations where he could make more final plays in training and I think it created clarity for him.” said Jesse Marsch.

“So we’re working through that. You know, part of what I said that we’ve had -- after the Chivas game I said we’ve missed steps. Some of it is to do with Kaku; that we’ve had to take more time to kind of continue to work him into things. But you know, now -- Matt Harmon asked me before the game, is it time to take the handcuffs off? The answer’s yes.

It’s time to let him go and understand and allow him to really fit into the group, and today I think he showed everyone, including himself, that he’s going to be a really good fit here and he’s going to be a big player here.”

Then the final goal came to Michael Murillo in the 76th minute as Kemar Lawrence took the ball from Tyler Adams and attack down the far side. His quick pass went across the entire area, thru the defenders and all Murillo had to do was tap it in for his first of the season.

After the final whistle blew it was another three points to the home side and how was Marsch feeling after crashing out of the CCL, was this performance what he was looking for from the guys.

“Yeah and I even think the way it went where we showed vulnerability in the first half, and we knew that we weren’t going to be perfect on the day because of fatigue and mental grind. And then at half time we visited that carefully and said, come on, the task at hand is: How good can we be at managing this moment mentally more than anything and making sure that we are on top of things so that we got out of this game with the result that we need and we can then move on with our season appropriately.” said Marsch.

“You know, I expected to see moments like we saw in the first half where -- where, you know, we weren’t as engaged and on top of things as we were. And then I was hopeful that when that would happen, that we would find a way to get our strength back and then find a way to get the result.

And so that kind of went according to plan or what we needed, so I think that we found that it’s never easy, but there’s a lot of strength within the group in many ways. Yeah, obviously a good result, an important result and good for us to get three points after everything we’ve been through this year.”

So now it’s a full week of rest and getting ready to host the Chicago Fire as Bastian Schweinstiger, Dax McCarty & Nemanja Nikolic will visit Red Bull Arena and no matter what position in the eastern table the Fire are in, these matches are always challenging.