Maybe this is what the Red Bulls needed. A kick in the pants by their rival on national television in front of a packed house in a game they desperately needed to win to get their season back on track. Though they picked up their game the final 10 minutes of the first half, they left the field down a goal and their fans had to be wondering where an offensive spark would come from.
So what was the message at halftime?
“Keep going,” coach Jesse Marsch said. “We were going in the right direction.”
With midfielder Sacha Kljestan carving up the defense with pinpoint passes in a Man of the Match performance, and defenders Chris Duvall and Matt Miazga scoring their first career goals, the Red Bulls scored a season-high three times – all in the second half and two in the first seven minutes – for an emphatic 3-1 victory over New York City FC before a sell-out crowd of 48,047 Sunday night at Yankee Stadium.
“We started a little bit nervous,” Marsch said. “Obviously, in a big game, that always tends to be the case, but we felt the game tilting in our favor the last 15, 20 minutes of the first half. We knew that we were going to be on top of the game in the second half, so the message was keep going. Don't give up another goal and let's try to get an early one.
“We knew that our fitness was very good and that we were going to be able to run at them and continue to put them under pressure, so I felt like we were able to get our deserved rewards with the goals. … (The) second half was just a great performance all around.”
The Red Bulls had been waiting for a game like this from Kljestan, who had been rotating from central to left midfield all season. But he was also motivated, having sat out Wednesday’s 1-0 victory over Real Salt Lake with a red-card suspension.
“We came out of the locker room saying, ‘Look, the game is there for us. We should have confidence that the goals were going to come,’ ”Kljestan said. “As soon as we got the first early goal it gave us a real boost of energy, a real boost of confidence, and maybe we scared them a little bit after that.
“We had a ton of confidence. The entire second half was played in their end. Credit to a lot of the guys around me. They found me in good spots and I was able to put a few plays together and we ended up winning the game. It was a good feeling to score three goals in one game as well.”
But it didn’t start out that way. NYCFC midfielder Thomas McNamara chested down a ball and slipped a shot inside the right post just six minutes into the match to put the Red Bulls (6-5-5) on their heels. Two minutes later, McNamara just missed making it 2-0, but he couldn’t get a foot on a cross from Mehdi Ballouchy near the base of the right post. And in the 17th minute, defender Chris Wingert got the ball tied up in his legs and couldn’t get a shot off a few yards from the net.
Fortunate to only be down a goal, the Red Bulls began to get into the match. Anatole Abang had a shot in the box saved by NYCFC goalkeeper Josh Saunders, and Bradley Wright-Phillips was denied in stoppage time when his shot struck defender Shay Facey in front of the net.
The final few minutes of the first half proved encouraging, but no one, perhaps not even the nearly 2,000 Red Bulls fans that formed a sea of red in the upper deck behind the goal on the first base side of the infield, could expect how quickly things would turn around in the second half.
Just two minutes in, Kljestan crossed the ball from the left and Wright-Phillips slipped between defenders to drive a left-footed volley into the upper right corner. And just like that the momentum changed.
In the 52nd minute, Kljestan sent a free kick from 35 yards on the right side into the box. The ball was headed down by NYCFC midfielder Ned Grabavoy and picked up by Red Bulls midfielder Mike Grella. Grella’s chip into the box was headed by Abang into the path of Duvall, who roofed a shot inside the right post for his first Major League Soccer goal in his 34-game career.
“Sacha was hungry, Sacha was motivated,” team captain Dax McCarty said. “He felt like he let the team down against Vancouver. He made a mistake and he apologized to us for it and we forgave him and he's been working so hard in training to come back and make a difference. Credit to him, he found so many dangerous spots in the second half, he was a little bit gassed there at the end, but he created so many chances for us today.
“… Sacha's just rounding into form and we need him. We need him to be our brain. We need him to make plays for us because that's what we brought him in for ,so he's been steadily getting better every game and hopefully this is a game where his confidence just goes through the roof and that he can continue this form.”
Marsch agreed.
“I think tonight, he wanted to make sure in a derby match that he's going to step on the field and make a big imprint, and I think he did,” the coach said. “He was good on set pieces, too, so we may have to make a change and have him as the one over the ball. Overall, he's been an important guy from day one. His mentality and what he's brought to the group, how he trains and how he plays, the whole bit. It was good to see him have a good game.”
But Kljestan wasn’t done. He set up defender Kemar Lawrence for a hard shot on net in the 54th minute; fed Wright-Phillips, who hit the base of the right post in the 56th minute; and slipped a perfectly-timed through ball to Wright-Phillips in the 65th minute that forced Saunders to make a great save with his right hand to push away what seemed like a sure goal.
Finally, in the 73rd minute, Kljestan was again rewarded. His free kick just outside the box on the right found Miazga at the far post, and the 19-year-old central defender outleaped NYCFC’s Andrew Jacobson and Facey to head the ball low and just inside the left post.
Miazga then ran to the dirt outside the touchline and took a pretend batting swing as part of his celebration.
Two young defenders getting into the attack pleased Marsch, who has been looking for the back line, especially the outside backs, to move forward with confidence.
“The starting point is that we've invested in young players,” Marsch explained. “Chris (Duvall) has had a very good year for us. It's just a couple of moments one v. one defensively he’s let a guy get a little bit of room on him, and then maybe they get a shot or a cross that has led to a goal. I've told him often, as a defender you're judged by how many mistakes that lead to goals. If he can clean that up, all the other good things that he does for us would show up more.
“I've liked Matt from watching him last year. A major goal of mine was to help him establish himself within our group. He's talented man. He's got a lot of ability and now it's turning a young man into a man, into a pro, into a real center back. He's making big strides this year. We know he's only going to get better from here.”
The Red Bulls should have had a couple more goals, but Manolo Sanzhez, who had been on the field less than a minute, took a feed from Sal Zizzo and hit the right post in the 84th minute. And Zizzo nearly scored in stoppage time when he shot inches wide of the right post.
“We talked a lot, especially in the four game losing stretch, learning about ourselves, growing as individuals and as a team and a lot of it has been ... whatever you want to call it, a competitive edge, a killer instinct, the sense of and belief that when the times are toughest that we were going to respond,” Marsch said. “When we were down 1-0, I felt like we systematically went about the game knowing that it was going to come. We came out in the second half and right away we had the lead and pushed it from there. I'm proud of the guys tonight and it showed a lot of character.”
Judging by their high-fives and hugs and collective euphoria in the tunnel leading to the locker room after the game, this was a performance and a confidence-builder that could take the Red Bulls a long way. It was also a game that saw a few young players grow up and some veterans step up. And that’s something that will be beneficial in the long run no matter how the rest of the season goes.
