Red Bull New York suffered a big hit to their season with a 2-1 loss at Mercedes Benz Stadium on Saturday night to Atlanta United FC. What made the loss so debilitating was that the club led for most of the game after a sixth minute goal from Emil Forsberg and controlled nearly all offensive categories except for the one that matters most, the scoreline.
“I think in certain moments we’re really close,” said head coach Michael Bradley about the team’s offensive woes in recent weeks. “We are on the cusp of really being a team that can reward ourselves and make the margins bigger, score more goals, be more ruthless and I told the team that tonight.”
New York has played four games since returning from the World Cup break and have only scored more than goal once, a 3-2 win over Orlando City SC. What’s more frustrating is that two of the losses where they surrendered multiple goals, came against clubs at the bottom of the Eastern Conference. The schedule picks up mightily in the next week as the club returns home to play Nashville and Chicago, teams that both sit towards the top of the Eastern Conference.
The game itself did show much promise for Red Bull. They controlled possession, looked dangerous on the attack and had the opponents teetering before letting them back into the game. Cade Cowell, Julian Hall and Mijahir Jimenez represented the newest version of the front line, adding youth but also looking to push the club’s leading scorer, Hall, into a wider position. It did succeed in stretching the Atlanta defense early but bore only the opening goal in the first 10 minutes.
“A frustrating, frustrating result,” said defender Dylan Nealis. “You take an early one-to-zero lead, and speaking as a defender myself, I think we should close up shop. Being on the road with a one-to-zero (lead), we could end it there and be dangerous on the attack, kill off the game. Not only myself but the rest of the guys, we take pride in that.”
The loss puts Red Bull’s playoff hopes into a gloomy perspective. The games against Nashville and Chicago now represent an inflection point. The decision to go with a young, inexperienced, team as well as an inexperienced head coach was always a gamble. Now the club has to prove that the decision wasn’t a short term mistake.
“I think the path is clear,” said Bradley about the club’s future. “There are so many things that are going in a really good direction. There’s so much improvement in a lot of different ways but in order for us to be an even better team, we’ve got to accelerate the rate of improvement with a few things.”
photo by Matt Kremkau