Red Bulls left with questions after loss
New York will try to make something of final nine regular season games
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The Red Bulls secured two away goals and then took an early first-half lead only to again be victimized by a pair of goals late in a half, both by Trinidadian international Andre Toussaint.
"Unfortunately the game today just sums up our season," Red Bulls coach Juan Carlos Osorio said. "Thirty-nine minutes into the game, we control the game, we are 1-0 up and we started taking some liberties and we allowed a very soft goal, the first one. We went into desperation and then make another big mistake and we were punished for that."
W Connection won the game 2-1, and advanced to the group stage 4-3 on aggregate. Their players celebrated wildly on the field and in the visitors' locker room. The mood was much more sullen in the Red Bulls locker room.
"We did some really good things after the first 90 and the first 30-35 minutes of this game," John Wolyniec said. "We did all the right things and to give it away in about six minutes it's tough. That's hard to swallow and something I'm sure we'll think about for a few days, if not the rest of the season."
Wolyniec started in place of captain Juan Pablo Angel, who was a late scratch because he was diagnosed with a Grade 2 concussion, suffered early in the opening leg last week.
The veteran struck for the game's first goal, putting the Red Bulls in front on 19 minutes and putting the Caribbean champions on their heels.
"We wanted to get the first goal and we did," Wolyniec said. "We felt pretty good after we scored and I really thought that we had a good hold on the game."
But the game changed in the final five minutes of the first half. W Connection coach Stuart Charles Fevrier made a tactical change in the 38th minute, bringing on Matthew Bartholemew as a secondary striker.
Two minutes later, Toussaint struck for the first of his two goals. Of the 37 goals in MLS play the Red Bulls have given up, 11 have come in the final five minutes of a half. The same is true of three of the four goals given up in the aggregate series.
"Every game. It's frustrating," Jeremy Hall said. "I don't know what to say anymore. It's constant. I've never been on a team like this. We have a good group of guys, but every game it's the same thing."
Toussaint struck for a second goal in the first minute of first-half stoppage time, capitalizing on a defensive gaffe by Kevin Goldthwaite. The forward picked off Goldthwaite's attempted pass to Hall along the 18-yard box and slotted the ball past Red Bulls goalkeeper Danny Cepero.
"In hindsight, two minutes or a minute to go in the half, I should have cleared it," Goldthwaite said. "I didn't make the best judgment call on that one. He made a better play than I did and unfortunately let in a goal because of it."
Now eliminated from a competition they placed much emphasis on given their domestic doldrums, the difficult task now for the Red Bulls players is to pick themselves up and make something of the final nine games of the regular season.
"It's awful, it's frustrating, all those adjectives you want to use, that's what it is," Cepero said. "I haven't had a worse feeling as a professional athlete here in New York. I think it just feels like we're in quicksand, the harder we try to get out, the deeper we're sinking in. It makes you feel helpless and your efforts are futile. It's going to be a test of our resilience, mental and physical, whatever happens from here on out."
But will they do so with Osorio in charge? At a summit in Austria last month, club management gave Osorio a vote of confidence. That was before the Red Bulls crashed out of the Champions League, though.
"To be very honest with you," Osorio said, addressing his job security, "that's the least of my worries at this particular moment."
Dylan Butler is a contributor to MLSnet.com.
