On Saturday night for the Red Bulls, this was their third straight match that ended in a draw. This time back at Red Bull Arena against the Vancouver Whitecaps that saw Brian White made his return and backheeled a flick shot to beat Carlos Coronel, and saw Lewis Morgan convert the equalizer for his seventh of the season. But once again, certain issues with this team repeatedly show up while they have excellent performances to earn the full three points.
They defend well, they attack well, at times they can’t link up or take quality chances in the final third, With the improvements they have made during the offseason, and their strong start to this season looked good, quite honestly looks to be in jeopardy as they are currently in the top three of the Eastern Conference. And now within these past three matches, we have seen silly, and quite honestly stupid red cards that shouldn’t have been created in the first place. If it wasn’t Andres Reyes silly backhanded whack at the face of Chicago’s defender Salquist, now it’s Noah Eile who decided to lift his left hand in the arm and made contact on a bouncing ball toward his net.
While Noah Eile has done well to start the season, and twice has had the bad fortunes of having shots deflect off of him and in the back of the net, those can be excused. But what he did with that poor decision making by raising his left arm up and just slightly, made contact with the ball, is inexcusable. He should be better than that, and he put his side down to ten men in the final fifteen minutes and more of the match.
“Right now, a little bit irritated. I think we played a very good second half. I think of course they scored a good goal, but after that, I think we were the better team overall. We kept the ball and we kept creating chances. We came out, playing a fantastic second half, scored a goal and then we get a red card.” said Red Bulls Captain, Emil Forsberg, “Of course, it changed the game. I mean, it’s hard. We wanted to win today and I think we were on a good path but sometimes mistakes happen. We have to keep looking forward. Keep evolving. It’s irritating because I think we could have won today and we didn’t.”
You can see from the last match at LAFC and this match against the Whitecaps, Head Coach Sandro Schwarz looking upset and animated inside his technical area trying to get his players to push up and stick to the game plan. Because this squad has improved and they are doing everything correctly, but what they are not doing is taking their chances in a better position. Now they are shooting off their own foot with red cards that were un-necessary and putting the rest of the squad behind the eight-ball. Their next match is on the road against Inter Miami at Chase Stadium, and right now they are looking for revenge after getting schlacked at Red Bull Arena four goals to nil.
The only positive from these draws is that they have only lost once in their ten matches played and are still unbeaten at Red Bull Arena with two wins and two draws. There are still positives with this club, but sadly the negatives are looming large with poor decision making, and the good discipline they showed to start the season by reducing their yellow card intake, has now grown larger per match. There’s only so much Schwarz can do during training and on the pitch, but now it’s up to the players to execute and stop making these mental mistakes. They must find a way to get back to their earlier form from the start of the season and quickly, or else they could fall further in the Eastern Conference.