Los New York Red Bulls jugaron un gran partido ofensivamente, pero difícilmente manejaron la parte defensive en que sus defensas mostraron una vez más falta de seguridad en esa línea. El equipo necesita una estrategia más sólida, y diferente de la proseguida durante la temporada regular, para la fase eliminatoria.
En la página NYRB en facebook.com he publicado el siguiente artículo en ingles.
A BITTER FAREWELL
RBNY gave their fans an unexpected bitter farewell with a stunning season loss. It almost overrode its Eastern Conference Title achievement and celebration two weeks ago. I believe that it all started with what appears the team not using the appropriate shoes for the weather, as it appeared that SJE had better grip on the ground. This was very critical in important plays where RBNY players fell down, where unable to put the ball in place either too high or too low, because they slid on contact. The club should evaluate the recommendation for the type of shoes used under these weather conditions for a future event with comparable perspectives. Perhaps the club can look into higher goals, starting with improving the quality and resiliency of the lawn itself. I know how it feels to play under the rain and a bit cold. If you like it, like me, it must be a lot of fun, but it would dislike to rain it must be an awful feeling. I believe that the defense overall played its worst game ever. Miller who had not a bad game yet, was very shaky defensively and had a lot to do with the first goal. In spite of his offensive work, Miller’s defensive performance was rather below his overall average. Likewise, Mendes had involvement in several defensive plays, including the second goal. I also believe that the second and third goals should have never occurred and that they game should ended 1-1 or 1-0 in the worst-case scenario. I think that fans celebrate Juan Pablo Angel beautiful goal assisted by Juan Agudelo. Ballouchy could have assisted Angel but preferred to shoot directly and failed to score a couple of times, when they could have completed a group play. Ballouchy was not bright in this game, and he had probably his lowest performance so far. Like Richards, he seemed to be somewhat diminished by the weather and the slippery lawn conditions. In relation to the strategy, I felt that there were some opportunities in the first half where there was no striker, since both Angel and Agudelo were dragging the other team defensively and nobody was there for a header or to kick and net the ball in close distance. I believe that Angel scored when he was placed in his truthful striking position.
The inclusion of Thierry Henry in the last 8 minutes came a little too late. He had two chances to score, one of them mistakenly stopped by the referee and a header that went over the bar. I was hoping that coach Backe would use more than one strategy rather than trying to reuse his visiting strategy at San José. The rivals had the entire knowledge of every single movement previously used and they got to take revenge from their Saturday loss last week.
I wish everyone a happy break.
