It was a Red Bulls team that went down to our nation’s capital to take care of business, and they saw an old friend in Troy Lesesne as they arrived at Audi Field and took care of business. Not only did they take care of business, they ran rough shot all over DC United and showed them why the Red Bulls are the leaders of this Atlantic Cup rivalry. You can see some improvement from DC under Troy Lesesne as Christian Benteke continued to prove he is a dominant force when he gets the ball, but under Schwarz, Benteke had nothing against the Red Bulls backline.
The opening half looked even from both sides trading attacking runs, with nothing connecting on the final ball until Elias Manoel got an opportunity to chip Alex Bono from way downtown and rainbowed that ball into the back of the net in first half stoppage time. It looked like a pitching wedge that Manoel snuck in and delivered a magical ball to float high and dangerously fall toward the net catching Bono well off his line for the lead before the halftime whistle blew. This was an amazing moment for the Brazilian.
Then the second half came and the Red Bulls took advantage of poor ball movement, and poor passing, as they intercepted many balls and made DC United pay, and pay they did when Emil Forsberg sprung Cameron Harper, who made a nice cutback move, then ripped his shot to beat Bono, then it was Manoel’s turn to lead Harper to an attacking run, Bono did make the save, Lewis Morgan was the trailer, picked up the rebound and buried his ninth of the season. Like a wounded animal DC was trying to get back into the match, even though they did pull one back, they had nothing.
And then the final nail in their coffin. Another strip from the Red Bulls in second half stoppage time, A great pass from Frankie Amaya to spring Corey Burke and he rips a great shot inside the near post to cement a four goals to one win. But there are more layers to this victory than just the goals and forcing turnovers on DC United. They managed a way to keep Christin Benteke quiet. They defended him very well, and the big man who took him away from scaring Carlos Coronel was Andres Reyes. He played well and, behaved himself without getting carded or ejected from the match.
In the 20th minute, Reyes bodied Benteke away from the ball, and both men crashed into the electronic ad signs, Benteke grappled with Reyes to get a reaction and put him into a bad position. But Reyes held his ground and didn’t make a poor move to put himself into trouble. He frustrated Benteke all night long and that hope is the beginning of Reyes growing up and keeping himself on the pitch match in, and match out. That was a solid performance from Reyes and I loved it.
Carlos Coronel was in perfect position to make the grabs, and the saves to keep the ball out of the net, he misread a header shot by Lucas Bartlett just slipped into the net. Other than that, Coronel looked strong and was excellent at Audi Field. The Red Bulls are now showing us why they have belief in Sandro Schwarz’s tactics, and that’s why his game plan is slowly transforming this Red Bulls team into something wonderful. In consecutive games, and for the third time this season, the Red Bulls have scored four goals we haven’t seen that in a very long time. Maybe this club is starting to come around and they have remained in third place in the east. Now the final match of this three game stretch is in Queens at Citi Field against NYCFC, and it’s time to see the boys end the week on a high note.