HARRISON, NJ (September 27, 2014) – The New York Red Bulls face their toughest test yet this season on their current trip to Los Angeles. The Galaxy have been riding waves of emotional highs and brilliant offensive play to sit just three points behind the league leading Seattle Sounders. The stars will be on display, as Landon Donovan, who recently decided to call it a career at the end of this season, Robbie Keane, and Omar Gonzalez look to continue their absolutely incredible form at home going against Thierry Henry, Tim Cahill, and the current Golden Boot leader Bradley Wright-Phillips, who seems to have a date with destiny as he chases Chris Wondolowski and Roy Lassiter for the single season goal record in MLS.
BNY Need To Know: L.A. Galaxy vs New York Red Bulls
Recently, Corner of Galaxy host Josh Guesman was a guest on Last Word Soccer Club Radio and he was asked about what makes the Galaxy so dangerous this season, and he answered succinctly, “It’s really about the support players. The moment you forget to mark Gyasi Zardes, then he scores. And the moment you forget to mark Landon Donovan because you’re marking Zardes, then Donovan scores on you. It’s about the layers.”
Those layers have allowed the Galaxy to go undefeated at home since the first match of the season, a 1-0 loss to Real Salt Lake, a match which they dominated. Since then they have built a +23 goal differential at home, which is double the goal differential of the next closest team.
The Red Bulls are coming off a stellar September in league play, going undefeated after a largely unimpressive, and mostly inconsistent season. The Red Bulls currently sit just above the red line, in fifth place behind Columbus Crew. A win on the West Coast would put manager Mike Petke’s squad in 4th place, and just 1 point behind Sporting Kansas City for 3rd.
The Red Bulls fielded a mostly reserves line up on Wednesday in CONCACAF Champions League play. The result was less than desirable, ending in a scoreless draw that saw New York crash out of the tournament with one CCL match left to play at home. The club then traveled to LA, arriving on Thursday. They spent time at the Red Bull offices there, spent time relaxing in the lead up to Sunday’s call to battle.
A win in Los Angeles is crucial for the Red Bulls, who are in a five team race for essentially three spots in the Eastern Conference. In stark contrast, the Galaxy is in a two club battle for the Supporters Shield.
Mike Petke seems to understand the gravity of the situation at hand. “We want to get out of there with the full three points but it’s going to be a big task. We chose to rest players, almost, actually every one of the starters before the Montreal game and it paid dividends for us against Seattle. We didn’t do that this past game, but we rested enough of the starters and we’re hoping that that pays dividends as well and the guys that I mentioned before can recover and get back. It’ll be a very tough game.”
This is the final match in an excruciatingly busy September schedule, which will see New York play 7 matches between September 6th and Sunday’s tilt against LA. In that period of time they only lost once, and have gone undefeated in league play since a 2-0 loss to conference leading DC United. In that span, they’ve beaten clubs ahead of them in the standings – DC, Sporting Kansas City, and Seattle. The match to start New York’s current run of form saw Petke make some tactical changes that made quite a bit of noise amongst Red Bulls fans. In that match, Petke and assistant coach Robin Frasier rolled out a 4-2-3-1 formation, using Dax McCarty, and the oft maligned Eric Alexander as the defensive pivots in order to contain the pressure Sporting put on. Against Seattle, the Red Bulls attacked, again changing thier tactics. The 4-3-3 allowed Bradley Wright-Phillips to net his third hat trick of the season, and Tim Cahill, coming as relief for Wright-Phillips, to score his second goal of the season.
Whereas it is unlikely that Petke will attack LA in the same manner his club did against Seattle, we may see a return to the more defensively responsible formation. The Red Bulls, however, may be a little short handed going into Sunday’s battle. Petke, in his weekly conference call Friday hinted multiple times that one of the club’s regulars, one who played the full 90 on Wednesday, may not be available on Sunday. And earlier today rookie phenom Ambroise Oyongo announced on Instagram that he would be out for LA, although that post has since been removed. That said, Petke seemed certain that he would have all his soldiers, seemingly minus Oyongo, on Sunday, “As far as going from the opening whistle, yea. I think everybody, minus perhaps one player in the whole team that’s here right now is able to go, start. As far as going 90, that’s a minute-to-minute decision, you know and minute-to-minute you take stock and look at how things are going,” Petke said, going on to reference the decision to take Wright-Phillips out in the second half against Seattle.
Even with all their offensive weapons available, it will most likely come down to whether Thierry Henry and company can assert their will on a seemingly unbeatable Galaxy side that has built a fortress in Stub Hub Center this season. And if the Red Bulls can’t dictate terms, then hopefully they will be able to weather the storm long enough for Bradley Wright-Phillips to find his 25th goal on the counter.
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Photo Credit – Bill Twomey Photography @BillTNJ
