Head Coach Jesse Marsch was able to find flaws in the New York Red Bulls' 4-0 victory over New York City FC.
"There were still a lot of moments where we could have been sharper such as when we create turnovers, when we are trying to build out of the back, when we are trying to create chances," Marsch said. "Now, we are not a team that is fully just built on with the ball, a lot of teams in the league they emphasize things with the ball. We emphasize a lot more against the ball, but in there I think we have to find our times to be a little bit sharper, to have connections that lead to us either breaking the opponents pressure a little bit or creating better chances."
Marsch said that the team should take a lot of good out of the match, and use it to fuel them moving forward.
"On one level, the performance in the game gives us a lot of confidence, and on another level, we have a big season ahead of us," Marsch said. "I made the reminder today that we just have to stay focused on day-to-day and game-to-game and make sure as much as there are certain talking points about the team we are becoming on the outside it does not mean anything. We have to prove ourselves every day, every week. The energy and concentration today in training was really good and that is what we have to focus on right now."
The Colorado Rapids will present a completely different challenge to the Red Bulls on Saturday night.
"They compete, there is no doubt about that," Marsch said. "We will be prepared with them having a couple different approaches, but the thing that we know for sure is that they can be very dangerous on the counter and certainly [Dominique] Badji has certainly done that the last couple of years, he is very dynamic, aggressive to get forward, he is quick and he has already hurt us there before so we will have a good game plan in place, but for sure they way that we can hurt ourselves the most is being careless with the ball and trying to emphasize too much with the ball. We will try to get that balance right and come up with a good game plan."
New York will face an uphill battle, taking a poor track record into Colorado. The Red Bulls have won just once in the last seven matches (1-5-1) and have been outscored, 17-4, in Commerce City.
Kickoff is set for 9 p.m. ET with coverage on MSG, MSG Go and New York Red Bulls Radio in English and Spanish on TuneIn.
Coverage of Saturday’s match on MSG begins at 8:30 p.m. with Honda Red Bulls Game Night. Steve Cangialosi will have the primary play-by-play responsibilities and will be alongside Shep Messing and Michelle Gingras.
New York Red Bulls Radio goes live at 8:30 p.m. ET with triHonda Countdown to Kickoff, hosted by Matt Harmon. Ernesto Motta will have the Spanish play-by-play call for the New York Red Bulls Radio and will be live at 9 p.m.
