HARRISON, NEW JERSEY (May 4, 2019) – The New York Red Bulls won a wild match on Saturday afternoon at home. In a game that had chances and crucial VAR calls, Derrick Etienne Jr. scored the winner against LA Galaxy.
Derrick Etienne Goal Beats LA Galaxy 3-2
The match got off to a quick start as center back Amro Tarek scored off a set piece in the 16th minute. New York appeared to get a second in the 34th minute with Daniel Royer beating the defense to score on a breakaway. The linesman ruled him offside.
LA Galaxy took the lead before halftime, the first goal coming the in 39th minute. Diego Polenta played a long ball to Zlatan Ibrahimovic. The striker sent a square pass to Uriel Antuna who scored. Polenta then sliced the defense again with a pass to Chris Pontius who found Ibrahimovic for a diving header. The half ended 2-1 to the visitors.
Marc Rzatkowski tied the match in the 59th minute. Just after Brian White was denied a goal, Rzatkowski scored on a first time shot right in front of goal on a pass from Connor Lade.
Derrick Etienne scored in the 66th minute but the play was called offside as White was in front of goal (in an offside position) and was ruled to have obstructed goalkeeper David Bingham on the play. Head official Nima Saghafi went to the monitor after consulting with the VAR and ruled it was a goal, as Bingham dove away from White to try and make the save.
The two sides traded chances in the final 20 minutes with Pontius heading the ball off the post being the best chance. The match ended 3-2, giving the Red Bulls an emotional win and the Galaxy just their second loss of 2019.
ETIENNE ?#RBNYvLA | #RBNY pic.twitter.com/yLe47Y3dlk
— New York Red Bulls (@NewYorkRedBulls) May 4, 2019
Three Takeaways:
Polenta passing: Polenta has secondary assists on both Galaxy goals in this game. Both came against the run of play from midfield. They set up two fantastic team goals.
Three goals without BWP: Bradley Wright-Phillips was not in the squad for this game and has struggled this year. White stepped up and RBNY found offense with three different goal scorers.
VAR was all over this game: The officials were busy in this match. Three times the ball went into the net and the restart was delayed for VAR to take a look. The game winner had a lengthy review and was ruled a goal. In each cases, the officials seems to take care and communicate. In my mind, they got every call right.
