Red Bulls Impacted by Montreal

The Red Bulls were looking pretty good in a this two match winning streak, with a hard fought match against both FC Cincinnati and the Los Angeles Galaxy. So the Red Bulls were facing a Montreal Impact side who were missing several starters, due to injury.

The Red Bulls had a solid opening forty five minutes as they were playing strong and at times looked to get stretched out, as the Impact were looking to sneak in a chance. The Red Bulls earned a free kick in the 34th minute as Daniel Royer got hit in the head.

After a few moments by the Red Bulls training staff taking care of Royer, the free kick was taken by the Red Bulls in the 36th minute. Once again it was Marc Rzatkowski taking the free kick and whipped it inside the area, then Aaron Long comes into the ball and headed it past Even Bush.

When the second half began the Red Bulls played strong and looked compact, it felt like the early moments of the first half were gone, but the Impact looked agitated. They were getting angry and upset with how the match was being officiated.

At times 4th official Robert Sibiga came inside the Impact’s technical area to and either expedite an injury or threaten to have impact head coach Remy Garde sent off, so the Impact responds by equalizing at the Red Bulls own game.

64th minute a free kick given to the Impact and as Maximiliano Urruti bends it in, Zakaria Diallo with just a slight header, deflects the ball past Luis Robles to equalize the match. That was a gut punch to start the downfall and then it got worse in the 78th minute.

Aaron Long trailing Anthony Jackson-Hamel to try and get a defensive position on him, and as Long gently stuck his left arm into him, Jackson-Hamel goes down inside the area and referee Alex Chilowitz blows his whistle and points to the spot. Urruti converts the spot kick in the 79 minute.

So what were the thought from head coach Chris Armas as the Red Bulls fell in this one? “You know, it’s interesting, because I thought for stretches of the first half, we got stretched a few different moments and that the second half, we took care of that, what we thought was an issue in certain areas of the field.” said Armas “They were overloading off Sean’s shoulder with Lovitz and that side, and -- so yeah, we felt we took care of that, and it was a tactical thing we addressed at half time.

“So in the second half, we thought we were making a good push. So in the end, their goals come in the second half, and you know, we’ve talked about trying to eliminate the things that lose you games and get better at the things that win you games. And we know what these things are in our minds.

I thought it was a case of that, a little bit. We talked about against a team built for transition, how important, yeah, some giveaways underneath could hurt us, which led to the penalty, and yeah, the entire play better -- little things, and then a set piece goal, so it’s -- of course there’s some -- Sean is late, but we feel badly about that. We thought this game we could control things a bit more. Lost it by giving up a few goals.”

Insult to injury also came to the Red Bulls as they went down to ten men for the rest of the match as he was down and received medical attention. Both Tim Parker and Luis Robles helped up Long, and got him off inside the near side touch line.

They tried to stretch his left leg out, but sadly he couldn’t finish the match, as the training staff helped him get back to the locker room. But it was difficult to see Aaron Long in some discomfort, as he suffered tightness in his hamstring.

“It’s super tight right now. We’ll get an MRI tomorrow and see how it feels.” said Aaron Long “No, never felt something like that before. I’m hoping it’s not too bad… Yeah, the hamstring just seized up a little bit. Not really too sure what it is right now, to be honest.

for the Impact, this is their first regular season victory at Red Bull Arena, not counting the playoff victory they had several years ago, but one thing is for certain, this team needs to get back to winning ways.