The New York Red Bulls travel down I-90 to take on the Philadelphia Union this Sunday at 5pm. It will be the Red Bulls first match in MLS play in 22 days since the 2-1 home loss to the Vancouver Whitecaps. Through that time off, a lot has gone on in the land of the New York Red Bulls and here’s my recap to bring you up to speed.
Booted from the Open Cup
This year is the 100th edition of the US Open Cup tournament and the Red Bulls will be watching the remainder of the tournament on their computers like everyone else. The New England Revolution ousted NY by a score of 4-2, with a brace from the Rev’s Kellyn Rowe. Red Bulls head coach Mike Petke after the match had said they were “…beaten by a mediocre team”, but also pointed out the Red Bulls did not play anywhere near their potential. One would think this loss would eat at Petke, as he was really all in for winning this tournament in his first year coaching. However, Red Bull Sporting Director Andy Roxburgh had advice for Petke regarding this match: “sweep it under the run, forget about it, and prepare the team for Philadelphia”.
Trialist and DP’s, oh my
Every single season over the Hans Backe era, fans always seemed to think that the current RBNY side was the deepest team ever. This season started off no different adding players like Olave, Espindola, Alexander, Kimura, and Steele who are all proven commodities in MLS. Andy Roxburgh is not convinced though and believes “We need to try and create some depth to the squad. That, I would say, is our first priority. The Red Bulls went on a nice little run before their three-week break and shored up the defense for the most part. However, there are still two glaring holes that need to be filled: Dane Richards and Kenny Cooper, or speed on the flanks and someone who is a pure finisher. The Red Bulls currently have two trialist in camp that can hopefully at least fit the bill of both needed talents. English midfielder Bradley Wright-Phillips (brother of Queens Park Rangers midfielder Shaun Wright-Phillips) can either play up top or on the flank as an attacking option and has a bit of speed behind him. German midfielder Sebastian Stachnik is the other trialist who is more of an attacking midfielder with a “tidy” left foot, according to Roxburgh.
As for New York signing a third designated player, Roxburgh is playing it as cooly as Erik Soler would. Roxburgh talked about the difficulties of bringing in a player, if they want to come and play here, said they have a list of names but no movement on any, and finished off with “Right now, I don’t think we’ll be doing any business like that certainly in the coming few weeks. It’s wide open over the summer period in Europe and so we don’t have to rush to it.” With this statement, I still fully expect NY to sign a third DP over this coming transfer window. I also expect it to be someone out of left field, a la Tim Cahill last year.
New Training Facility
The Red Bulls returned from their little break to once again get back into the swing of things and train ahead of Sundays Eastern Conference clash. There was a small difference from this weeks training to every week that preceded it: no more Montclair St. University. That’s right, the Red Bulls finally opened their new state of the art training facility in Hanover, NJ. Head Coach Mike Petke was, of course, the first person to kick a ball on the new fields early on Tuesday before any of the players arrived. The new facility, sits on 15 acres of land with four-buildings, over 20 room lay out includes a full gym, personnel offices, training room, cafeteria, and media work room. In addition to the first team’s locker room, the facility also houses two coaches locker rooms, a secondary locker room and additional one for coaches. As for playing surfaces, the Red Bulls now have two grass fields (one of which is heated) and one turf pitch at their disposal during training sessions.
Red Bulls around the globe
It has been a busy few weeks in International soccer as well. The Under 21 Euros just wrapped, with the U20 World Cup about to begin. The Confederations Cup is also in full swing down in Brazil ahead of the 2014 World Cup. However, going into this round of qualifiers, only the host was a given come next summer. Red Bulls midfielder Tim Cahill helped propel his Aussies into World Cup 2014 as Australia was the second team to qualify, the first being Japan. The bigger story for Red Bulls in WCQ comes from the Red Bulls leftback Roy Miller. Miller and the Ticos sit in second in the Hex standings on 11 points, two points behind the Hex leading USMNT. Costa Rica tied Mexico in Azteca (nowadays, who hasn’t?), beat Panama 2-0 at home, and sunk Honduras 1-0……off a Roy Miller header. Yes it seems Roy Miller will be retuning back to the Red Bulls with his first ever professional tally for club or country (that wasn’t an own goal).
An open cup exit, new training facilities with new players, Red Bulls heading home goals to help their countries get to Brazil, all fall under a period of no actual league games. Matches were being played and the rest of the league started playing catch-up with NY. The Red Bulls sit second in the east with 25 points to Montreal’s 29 (on two fewer games). Philly, Houston, and SKC all sit on 22 points with 15 games played to NY’s 16 played. All in all, results fell fairly good for the Red Bulls and its fanbase. Now it is time to turn it on and actually try to achieve a winning summer for once.
(image courtesy of newyorkredbulls.com)
