The Red Bulls are 1-1-0 in the MLS is Back tournament following Thursday night’s loss to Columbus Crew SC.
Despite the setback, New York controls its fate entering the final day of play in Group E, sitting in a tie for second with Wednesday’s opponent, FC Cincinnati. A win would see the Red Bulls advance, but the group understands that they will need to improve to get a result.
“That’s something we’ve got to take a hard look at,” said captain Sean Davis.“We’ve got to look in the mirror and really turn things around because we’ve got a big game next week. We’ve got to take what we can from this game and look forward.”
The loss was the team’s first of 2020, having beaten Cincinnati on opening day and earned a 1-1 draw at Real Salt Lake before the suspension of the MLS season. For Davis, it will be a chance for the team to look at film and learn lessons to move forward with.
“We’ve got take a hard look at this game,” said Davis. “Understand what went right, be really honest with ourselves. Honestly assess our performance. From there we need to turn the page quickly, we know they are a team that got three points. We have to move on quickly, but we do have to take lessons from this game because it wasn’t good enough.”
Head Coach Chris Armas agreed with his captain, saying the Red Bulls need to improve their performance, and will learn from the loss but quickly turn the page.
“The approach is very much like any normal time and we're early on in the year,” said Armas. “Our sharpness, our understanding of exactly how we want to play is going to keep getting better. We come out of this game, we take some positives, we look hard to where we can improve and we throw everything at Cincinnati. If you talk just about the tournament, we’re very much alive and we'll be ready for the next game but we know Cincinnati's capable and they have a lot to play for as well with a big win [over Atlanta], and we're excited to prepare for them.”
As for Wednesday’s match, Armas thinks his team will be ready for a big match, with a place in the knockout round on the line.
“Our team doesn’t quit, we’ve got a lot to play for,” said Armas. “We’ll be disappointed to look back, that we give up a couple of goals that in tight games, in real games, in becomes hard to win when we give away a couple of goals the way we did. A lot to play for, we’ll be back in a couple of days.”
