RSL's Paulo Jr. goes down in the box. (AP Images)Us Real Salt Lake faithful have gotten pretty used to beating the Red Bulls, Thierry Henry or no. They do particularly well against the New Yorkers at Rio Tinto Stadium, as RSL has come away with clean sheets on the last 4 meetings in Sandy. This match really didn't turn out any differently.
Hans Backe came out with a little different game plan this time. Usually the Red Bulls employ a 4-4-2 look, but for this one they came out in a 3-5-2 to try to challenge RSL in the midfield. They had some limited success but really couldn't stop the Claret and Cobalt.
RSL struck first in the 39th minute. Fabian Espindola beat the high New York line and Paulo Jr. flicked the ball to him, creating a 1 on 1 with rookie New York 'keeper Ryan Meara. The crafty Argentinian smacked the ball through Meara's legs with a powerful nutmeg to give RSL the 1-0 lead. Henry did get a flick on chance in the 43rd minute, but Nick Rimando was up for it and saved it, sending the teams to the break with the 1-0 scoreline.
New York went back to their usual formation on the second half and brought Kenny Cooper into the match. Cooper nearly paid immediate dividends, forcing a save out of Rimando on 48 minutes. However, RSL took total control in the 58th minute. Sebastian Velasquez sent a nice little lay off pass to Espindola, but Meara saved his point blank effort. Unfortunately for the young 'keeper, the rebound fell right to Luis Gil, who pounded the ball into the net to make it 2-0 to Real Salt Lake.
The Red Bulls got a lot of possession late and tried to mount a comeback. Their biggest chance came in the 76th minute when Jan Gunnar Solli took a close range shot from an angle, but Rimando pulled off a nice near post save to preserve the nice 2-0 win for RSL.
I think the Red Bulls did have some luck with that midfield set up. However, a lot of RSL's issues in the first half seemed to stem from over cooking a lot of their passes. Espindola had some great runs, but RSL seemed to have trouble finding him on occasion. Sebastian Velasquez looked pretty good again, especially in the second half. Javy Morales and Sabo both looked decent in their late appearances, and hopefully RSL will be even better once they get back.
On another side note, Fabian Espindola and Chris Schuler earned MLS Best XI honors in week 2 for their performances. Congratulations guys!
No comments:
Post a Comment