GIACOMETTI: Red Bulls remain focused in face of early adversity

HANOVER, N.J. – The season may be just two weeks old, but the New York Red Bulls have already endured their first wake-up call of 2016.

Following a tough outing in Montreal, the Red Bulls still find themselves searching for their first win—and first goal—of the season.As a unit, no one has been devoid of blame, with each player taking responsibility for the team’s slow start. And as the questions begin to pile up from around the league, the Red Bulls have turned inward to renew their confidence in themselves and their system.

“We’re two games in, so we don’t want to react too much to what’s going on,” goalkeeper Luis Robles told NewYorkRedBulls.com. “We know that, sooner or later, if we believe in the process, if we fall in love with the process, we’ll be rewarded. It’s important right now to find our focus. There are certain things that, if we can continue to improve on, the results will be there.”

Tuesday afternoon marked New York’s first training session since that 3-0 loss to the Impact on Saturday, giving the team their first opportunity to correct the issues that led to their poor result at the weekend.

After the loss, many within the locker room expressed a need to identify what had gone wrong in order to move forward, and there is a feeling within the squad that they have done just that.

“It’s really some small things that we’re really good at as a team that we just didn’t do,” defender Kemar Lawrence said. “For the next game, we’re going to try to get all of that stuff done. It’s not a big thing that we need to work on, it’s things that we know but, on matchday, we just didn’t do as well as we should have.”

Throughout the early stages of the season, “sharpness”—or a lack thereof—has been the buzzword surrounding New York’s start to their campaign. It’s not an easy thing to address, but Robles believes the squad has made strides in their quest to right their wrongs.

“When we’re talking about sharpness, we’re talking about on the ball, the way we set ourselves up, and also the way we stay mentally engaged,” he said. “It’s not just one thing, which makes it more difficult, but that’s why we have those sessions in the classroom so that we can address it.”

While a team’s success is ultimately measured on matchdays, the hard work starts and ends on the training pitch, and in the film room. And after two disappointing performances to start the year, the Red Bulls remain confident that the results will come if they remain focused on the process.

“We looked at some things and felt that our overall commitment to the game—tactically, making things hard, running, competing—it wasn’t at a high enough level,” head coach Jesse Marsch admitted. “We’re not overly discouraged; we know that the season’s a marathon. We’ve had a less than ideal start, but we still feel strongly that we have a good group and we believe in each other. It’s important to put good work in every day so that, come Saturday, we’ll be ready to put our best performance yet on the field.”

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