Red Bulls stung by PK call in San Jose
New York unable to erase 1-0 deficit following first-half penalty kick
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"I thought for the most part it was an even game," New York interim head coach Richie Williams said. "I think it's unfortunate that the game was decided on the wrong call by the referee on the penalty kick. You see the replay, you see the player wasn't fouled, and falls down, and to lose the game on that call is a bad feeling. We're disappointed."
The game's lone goal came midway through the first half when San Jose's Arturo Alvarez, attacking out of the right wing corner, split two New York defenders and sped into the penalty area. Alvarez then fell to the turf, and referee Steven DePiero judged that Jeremy Hall had clipped the Earthquakes forward. Ryan Johnson took the penalty kick for San Jose, left footing the ball into the lower right corner of the net.
"I'll have to go back and look at it on video," Red Bulls defender Mike Petke said. "I'm definitely not going to criticize (the referees). It's not worth it. I don't want to keep giving my money away to fines."
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After a sluggish first half, the Red Bulls came out a bit brighter after intermission. Their best chance came in the 50th minute, when Seth Stammler teed up Juan Pablo Angel for a shot from the top of the arc, a low blast that forced San Jose goalkeeper Joe Cannon to dive to his right to make the save.
"I thought we were the better team in the second half," Williams said. "Unfortunately, we couldn't get the tying goal to get something out of it. San Jose was organized. Their defenders did well, and they played a good game. I don't think we tested Joe Cannon enough with some of the opportunities we had. We were just let down in the final third, with our final pass, or any kind of combination in the final third.
"Our crosses weren't great. On our set pieces, I don't think we challenged them enough. (We didn't) put the ball in certain areas and make them make decisions.
"Overall, I was happy with the guys. They kept plugging away and working hard. They kept trying to do the right things and get the (tying) goal but it didn't work for us tonight."
New York hasn't earned three points away from home since May 2008, and has just one more chance this season to break that streak.
"It's not an easy thing to think about," Petke said, "especially coming into a game tonight where we thought we should have gotten some points out of it, against a team that's struggling as well. It's a game that we could have taken, but it wasn't meant to be."
Williams will now turn his squad's attention to an Oct. 14 trip to Sandy, Utah for New York's final road match of the season, a date with Real Salt Lake.
"We've only got four wins, so we're trying our hardest to get as many wins as we can," Williams said. "We've got one more road game, and it would be nice to be able to get three points on the road in ten days (against Real Salt Lake) to end that streak and we're going to keep working at it.
"We're professional soccer players, this is what we do for a living. So whether it's a little pick up game here or a training session there, you always need to show up. You have got to have pride in yourself and in what you do, and come every day and be competitive and want to do well. We've had such a disappointing season that we want to show everybody that we're still a good team and that we still can get results. Over the last six games, it's been a little bit better, we've got some points, got some wins. With two games left we're going to try and get six more points out of them."
Pete Ratajczak is a contributor to MLSnet.com.
