HANOVER, N.J. – As their match with the Houston Dynamo crept on, the New York Red Bulls hit a milestone they would have preferred to avoid.
About midway through the first half, the clock struck 20, signifying 200 consecutive minutes without a goal to start the season.
Fortunately for New York, Sacha Kljestan took advantage of a mistake at the back just a few minutes later to get the Red Bulls on the board for the first time in 2016. But the floodgates didn’t quite open up straight away, as the side entered the break at a deficit.
The second half, however, was a different story entirely.
“I was saying that we were going to be scoring goals,” said a confident Lloyd Sam. “You guys asked the same question last year when we went a couple of games without scoring. That can happen, but I wasn’t worried.”
After the break, New York sprung to life in a three-goal outburst against the Dynamo. Some were gritty, while others were jaw dropping, but in the end, they were all needed to grab their first win of 2016.
After bagging the most goals in Major League Soccer just a year ago, have the high-scoring Red Bulls made their triumphant return?
“I hope so,” Kljestan told NewYorkRedBulls.com. “At halftime, Jesse told us to play with more confidence and more commitment to ourselves. In the second half, we played out of the back, we played at a fast pace, and we got it to the next guy quicker without taking so many touches on the ball and wasting time. That created more chances and I hope we can continue that moving forward.”
The goal-scoring hero on the night, midfielder Felipe was also quick to credit his side’s pace of play, and decisiveness on the ball as the driving factors behind their impressive second-half turnaround.
“We just figured that we need to play that we played last year; keep moving the ball, play quickly, move the ball forward and don’t hold the ball too much,” he said. “It gives us confidence to keep moving forward.”
Playing at a fast pace is nothing new for the Red Bulls, as the side has been largely defined by their up-tempo play under head coach Jesse Marsch. A familiar refrain during each of his training sessions, Marsch has implored his side to play faster as to encourage a style of play that comes as second-nature come match-day.
With the first win of the season in tow, Marsch is hopeful that the lessons learned from his side’s second half performance against Houston will carry on throughout the rest of the season.
“We were a little bit more aggressive,” Marsch said. “Even in the first half when we were down, some of the attacking plays looked like we were more aggressive and confident and dangerous. Obviously with Gonzalo [Veron] on the field, I thought he stretched them and that was a good thing for us.
“In the second half, we got back to just giving it to the next guy instead of each guy trying to create some big play. There was a real rhythm and speed to how we played, so we’re trying to emulate that in training every day and make that an emphasis of how we get ourselves going.”
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