The New York Red Bulls (5-8-4, 19 points) suffered a 2-1 defeat against Chicago Fire FC (4-9-5, 17 points) at Soldier Field on Sunday night. Â
"One more time, a big lesson for my group, for me, and my coaching staff," Struber said. "We expected a tough game away, but in the end, we crashed our mindset with some mistakes in the first eight minutes."
Chicago Fire FC opened the scoring in the second minute of play, when Chinoso Offor received a pass on the top of the eighteen-yard box and laid the ball off for Lucas Stojanovic, who fired a shot into the top left corner of the goal.Â
"We lose this game with a very bad feeling for me and my players," Struber said. "We have to look forward with good learnings and hopefully we can change the bad run away in the next game away at Montreal."
Six minutes later, Chicago doubled their lead, when Carlos Teran delivered a long throw in into the center of the box, which ended up on the far post of New York’s goal and Stojanovic volleyed it in for his second goal of the match.
"What I missed in the first, especially the first 10 minutes, was the right organization," Struber said. "We [did not] have the right behavior in some actions."
New York minimized Chicago’s lead in the 97th minute after Tom Edwards shot attempt on goal was saved by Chicago goalkeeper Bobby Shuttleworth, but forward Tom Barlow received the rebound and tapped it in to give the Red Bulls their first goal of the match.
"We’ve had a talk as a team on our own," Edwards said. "We feel like even though we have a young team -- everyone keeps saying how young we are -- I feel that we have a lot of experience in the team, even the young lads, they are great lads. They have a lot of experience themselves and I feel like it is just coming together as a team, what we are doing in the games where we were getting results. We just need to go back to the basics and get them right and then we can start expanding from there."
Barlow scored his first goal of the season and his seventh in MLS since joining the Red Bulls on May 8, 2019. The goal was the first by a substitute for New York this season.
"Getting back to the basics and doing them properly will be the first stepping stone for us to get back to winning ways," Edwards said.
