Red Bulls faced off against Montreal in the Olympic Stadium on Saturday night. The refereeing team for the game was Ismail Elfath, Peter Manikowski, Craig Lowry, and Terry Vaughn as the center referee, two assistant referees and fourth official respectively.

As Shep Messing and Joe Tolleson mentioned multiple times during the game, this was Ismail Elfath's first MLS match as a center referee. So who is this guy and why does he deserve to be an MLS referee?

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Hey Red Bulls Fans,

I am kind of new to the blog, but I have been checking in pretty frequently since the start of the season. I am not in an official supporters club or anything, but I am heading down to the game in Philly this Sunday. The Union just sent out an email about security concerns certain sections being closed off to Union fans.

I am not sitting in a Red Bulls supporters section and I was wondering if anybody is heading down to the game or has been to a game in Philly in the past? How hostile is the environment and should I be expecting any fights, etc.? Sorry if this is the wrong place to post something like this. Like I said, new to the blog.

Clearly the foul by Rafa Marquez against Shea Salinas is the talk of MLS. Certainly the Red Bulls MF is facing a potential suspension, especially considering the injury to the San Jose player. But there's been a great deal of hyperbole about this play, and I've had about enough of it.

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SBNation's US Soccer editor, Jeremiah Oshan, takes the pulse of the New York Red Bulls as they head into the first full week of training camp and finds a team with a lot more question marks than answers. A great summary of where things stand now, ahead of what should be a very active week.

I know Jurgen said he wanted US International players to spend the off season concentrating on their training, but is this what he had in mind?

http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/2011/11/30/agudelo-reveals-offseason-training-plans-liverpool

I'm sure Klinsmann would rather see his players work with a legitimate football club, rather than a 2-bit operation cheered on by a bunch of barely literate bums and drug addicts with funny accents (and no, I'm not talking about the New England Patriots.)

I guess there were 19 other clubs that wouldn't have him, so he just bumped his way down the list. Here's hoping a real team wants him next year.

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Wednesday night at 8pm the Red Bulls will travel to Pizza Hut Park in Frisco Texas to take on FC Dallas.  Dallas has a lot of dangerous attacking weapons, but they have been struggling recently.  Brek Shea has had a dip in form the last month or so for his club.  I'm not sure Dallas would be my first choice to see in the wild card round, but they're still very much a beatable team at the moment.  What does everyone think of our chances?

And one side note about the last game.  Against Philadelphia we improvised the position for the 4-4-2.  Dax played as a slightly wide midfielder and always looked to play Solli down the wing.  When Solli went up, Marquez pinched right and along with McCarty covered the space.  The team took a risk tactically and it paid off.  I hope Backe doesn't simply revert to the standard formation that led to so many stagnant performances this season (16 ties!) and plays another variation.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you're no doubt familiar with the controversy surrounding Rafael Márquez's post-game comments following Wednesday's 3-1 defeat to visiting Real Salt Lake. Today, Hans Backe and the Red Bulls reacted, suspending Marquez for Saturday's home match against Portland, following a team meeting, according to MLSSoccer.com's Kristian Dyer. Jeremiah Oshan did a great job of breaking down Marquez's impact on the team's results this morning in his SBNation column, concluding that they may be better off without him. If further proof is needed of the Mexican's sub-par form this season, you need to look no further than Ian Thomson's piece from Kick Off Online, which we somehow missed before the postponed Galaxy game.

Credit to Backe and Solér for doing the right thing here. No man should be above the team, whatever salary he may command, and Márquez's comments were detrimental to team morale. Hopefully he has managed to patch things up behind the scenes with his teammates, Tim Ream especially.

Is our midfield really bad enough that we need to take an unwanted player from Kansas City?

Apparently so.

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          Thierry Henry will not make the trip to Houston for the Red Bull game against the Dynamo on Saturday, May 21. There is no word yet on the extent of the injury, but it involves the striker's knee which had sidelined him during the end of last season. Henry has had a stunning resurgence to his form since a lackluster beginning to his NYRB career which put his skill and future with the club in question. He has been a key asset to the team the past few matches, and he will be sorely missed on the pitched. However, the Red Bulls have depth at striker, and the emergence of Luke Rodgers as a competent finisher and playmaker takes some stress away from the injured Henry. Expect to see Agudelo and Rodgers up front tomorrow as the Red Bulls try to stay atop the Eastern Conference.

The New York Red Bulls club payroll is first in the league at $13,397,087, almost a full million more than the Los Angeles Galaxy who come in at second with $12,419,679. Both teams are well above the league average of  $4,451,621. Thierry Henry ($5.6 mill) is the second highest paid player in MLS behind only David Beckham ($6.5 mill) of the Galaxy. Rafa Marquez of the Red Bulls is the third highest player ($4.6 mill) well ahead of American superstar Landon Donovan who comes in at fourth ($2.3 mill). It is no surprise that the top four highest-paid players are from the Galaxy and the Red Bulls, more interesting is the fact that Rafa and Henry make up about 2/3rds of NYRB's payroll and David Beckham takes up half of the Galaxy's payroll. Join me for more after the jump...

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