Bradley Focuses on Avoiding Second Half Slump

Red Bull New York carried an impressive 3-0 lead into halftime on Saturday against San Diego FC at Sports Illustrated Stadium. Certain teams in the past have found it difficult to keep the same intensity to finish out a game but Michael Bradley’s team avoid that slump and added an additional goal for a dominant 4-1 performance. After the game, the head coach spoke about how he kept the team focused to avoid the drop-off in quality.

“The main message was to, in a strong and intelligent way, keep playing and keep pushing for the next goal,” said Bradley. “We’re never going to be a team that’s just happy to sit back and defend a lead. So you want to be able to do that with intelligence but you have to still, with our ideas, continue to push the game.”

New York has had moments this season where their offense didn’t quite connect the way it did against San Diego. By the 30th minute, Red Bull had seen Julian Hall score his 11th goal of the season, Jorge Ruvalcaba his eighth and Devin Padelford his first as New York player. Combined with a dynamic penalty save right before halftime by Ethan Horvath, and the home side had all put stamped out the opposition’s momentum.

Still, San Diego didn’t sit give up in the second half. Head coach Mikey Varas made key substitutions that did spark his side. Cedric Bakambu and Alejandro Alvarado came in and gave New York a different obstacle to overcome. Bakambu eventually found his team’s only goal, forcing Red Bull to refocus and retake control of the game.

“We were all saying we’re not going to take our foot off the gas,” said starting goalkeeper Horvath. “We’re going to play for the next goal. We want four, we want five. If you don’t fall into that trap, you set yourself backwards for the rest of the second half. We were positive, we watched some stuff back that maybe could have been a bit better. The message was we were going to keep pushing.”

The win helped secure Red Bull’s place in the Eastern Conference playoff picture, especially given the surging FC Cincinnati, who also won on Saturday. Now, the club sits in eighth place, just one point below seventh behind Orlando City SC. A major rivalry game against DC United looms on Wednesday with a chance to push Red Bull higher up the table. A loss doesn’t necessarily push them out of the picture but could add more pressure with a weekend fixture against Toronto at home quickly to follow.