In the four times the Red Bulls played the Columbus Crew this season the Crew showed they could keep the ball on the ground and play through the midfield, while also being successful playing long ball over the top of the Red Bulls defense.
But with a two-goal lead going into the second leg of their Eastern Conference Final Sunday night at Red Bull Arena, there are two other game plans the Crew could turn to. One, they could push right away for an away goal and, essentially, kill the game – and the series – off right then, or two, they can bunker in, absorb wave after wave of attack by the Red Bulls, then hit them on a counter attack.
Basically, the Red Bulls have to be ready for anything.
“Who knows what they are going to do?” defender Matt Miazga said. “They might sit back. They might go for an away goal. We’ll find out during the game. I think (coach) Jesse (Marsch) will prepare us. Obviously we’re going to be pushing for a goal. We need to, we’re down, so I don’t think tactics change.
“We’re going to continue to play like we play, a high-press system, and hopefully it works out. We’ll see how they present themselves in the game and if we have to make adjustments, we will, but we’re definitely confident in ourselves and have belief we will come out of this situation.
Whatever the Crew’s game plan is, Miazga is certain of one thing.
“We can’t concede, obviously, first of all,” he said. “The rest defense will be a huge factor. Me and Ronald (Zubar) will have to be stepped up high. We’ll be pushing for the game since we’re down, but we can’t get caught on a counter, which is very important.”
The Red Bulls have not fared well this season when teams have put numbers behind the ball and waited to counter attack. A few times they have given up goals on the counter, but mostly they spent the majority of the game moving the ball around the perimeter of the box and trying to force passes into forward Bradley Wright-Phillips.
“We’re not going to change anything,” midfielder Felipe said. “We’re just going to approach the game (as usual). We’re going to score goals and do everything we need to get through.
“It’s 11 guys on the field, not only on defense. Everybody has to work the way we did all year long. We have to play the way the coach wants us to play and the way we were supposed to play in Columbus, and we can win this game.”
Needing two goals to force extra time and, perhaps, penalty kicks, and three goals to win outright, you would think the Red Bulls would try and come out and get a quick goal to cut into the deficit, create some momentum and get the crowd into the game right away. But that may not be the case.
“You can’t win the game in the first 15, 20 minutes, but you can lose it,” Marsch said. “It’s important for us to be aggressive and have some urgency, but not be reckless. We’ll get that balance right. We talked the last few games we had at the end of the year when we knew we were in the playoffs. We said ‘Let’s treat it like we’re down a goal and have urgency from the start.’ We’ll be ready to go.
“Columbus did a very good job of putting us in a tough game at their place and got a 2-0 lead. That’s what you’re supposed to do when you have the first leg. They took care of their business, now we have to come home and take care of ours.”
That means the players need to be patient, but that may be difficult as the clock ticks down on the possible end to their season.
“For me, for sure, it means to be patient,” midfielder Mike Grella said. “As soon as the first goal goes in the pressure will mount on them and we’ll be at home and that arena will be rocking. You never know what’s going to happen. Anything can happen in football, that’s the beauty of it.
“(We have to have) aggressive execution, high energy and fight every single battle on the field so we have nothing to regret and look back and say we could have done better. For sure, patience, because we can find the result if we do all the things we know how to do.”
That’s what Marsch believes as well. It would be silly to think he would abandon the way the team has played all year in the most important game of the year. So patience is the key, at least in the beginning.
“The game plan won’t vary too much,” Marsch said. “The things that we felt were important (in Columbus) will also be important at home. It’s just a matter of executing better. We didn’t feel that we executed well on a lot of our tactics, on our set pieces, on a lot of different aspects of the game.
“But at the same time we were able to limit them in many ways, so even though they wind up getting two goals I thought that the job we did on (Ethan) Finlay, the job we did on (Kei) Kamara in a lot of ways was pretty good. (Federico) Higuain was a dangerous and active player in the game so we’ve got to do a better job of taking care of him.”
Marsch isn’t the kind of coach to look back and dwell on a bad performance, even in a playoff game. Yes, the Justin Meram goal nine seconds into the game stunned the Red Bulls, and maybe the players never recovered, but there’s still 90 minutes to be played in their own building, and the place should be rocking.
“It’s a big moment,” Marsch said. “If anything, you say ‘Alright, it’s a really big game for a lot of guys and a team that’s still a little bit young and hasn’t been together, and now we go down early on a play like that.’ And now our ability to stick with the game and still go after it was important.
“If we get out of there when it’s 1-0 or if we manage to get a goal, then we’d be talking very differently about this. Again, great job, congratulations to Columbus for taking care of their business. Now it’s up to us to take care of ours.”
