The New York Red Bulls Reserves defeated the Chicago Fire Reserves 6-1 at Toyota Park Sunday night, as Red Bulls newcomer Andre Akpan registered a brace in the win.
“Obviously, it was a very good performance from us," said Reserve Team Coach/Player Development Coordinator John Wolyniec. "I know Chicago was a bit under-manned. We had that experience in our first reserve game against Montreal. But for me, the team’s showing well and it seems they’re getting better each week so that’s very big for us. That’s a lot more important to me than the score line.”
Marius Obekop opened up the scoring in the 15th minute, before New York doubled up in the 22nd off Akpan's first of the night. Chicago managed to trim the lead to one in the 30th minute when Yazid Atouba fired one past Santiago Castano. But the Red Bulls answered back quickly with two goals in two minutes from Lloyd Sam (31') and Akpan (32'), who scored his third goal in two matches since joining the club on Mar. 28.
The first half closed out with New York leading Chicago 4-1, as Kevin Hartman replaced Castano between the pipes for his first bit of game action since coming on board last month. While he did his part to shut the door on Chicago, Amando Moreno (71') and Michael Bustamante (77') rounded out the scoring to cap off New York's 6-1 victory.
Wolyniec, who just last week claimed his first win at the helm, believes the players are encouraged by the outcome of Sunday's match.
"Our competitiveness has come on," said Wolyniec. "I think some of the young guys are starting to realize what the reserve games are about and are starting to raise their level to match that and it’s showing up in the results. It’s good to see the guys are starting to learn each other, especially this past game where we seemed to be pretty sharp in the attacking end.”
The Reserves are back in action Sun., Apr. 27, when they take on Toronto FC following the completion of the Red Bulls' 2:00 PM match against Toronto FC at BMO Field.
View the full 2013 Red Bulls Reserve schedule.
Chicago Fire 1 - 6 New York Red Bulls
Chicago Fire: Paolo Tornaghi (Alec Kann 46’); Michael Jiminez* (Hayden Cochrane* 46’), Grant Lillard, Joel Leon, Michael Videira; Corben Bone, Victor Pineda, Yazid Atouba, Oscar Gonzales* (Brendan King 46’); Colin Rolfe^, Quincy Amarikwa.
*Chicago Fire Academy Player
^Guest Player
New York Red Bulls: Santiago Castano (Kevin Hartman 40’); Kosuke Kimura, Digao, Matt Miazga, Roy Miller; Ian Christianson, Lloyd Sam (Rafhinha 58’), Amando Moreno (Adam Najem 77’), Ruben Bover (Michael Bustamante 63’); Marius Obekop, Andre Akpan (Alex Muyl 75’)
Scoring Summary
NYRB – Marius Obekop (15’)
NYRB – Andre Akpan (22’)
CHI – Yazid Atouba (30’)
NYRB – Lloyd Sam (31’)
NYRB – Andre Akpan (32’)
NYRB – Armando Moreno (73’)
NYRB – Michael Bustamante (77’)
