A week after their debacle against Montreal in which they threw away a 1-0 lead to end up losing 2-1, Red Bull came into their match against Dallas, 4th place in the West, with a purpose and it looked that way from the jump.
Red Bull for the full 90’ created plenty of chances (potentially 4 grade A) and if this were any other season they would have walked out of Red Bull Arena with a smile and three points. But for whatever reason in 2022 they just cannot buy a goal.
If you look at the eye test, and the stats, Red Bull dominated a Dallas team with the likes of Jesus Ferreira, Paul Arriola & Alan Velasco, holding the trio to three total shots with only one of them finding the target.
Captain Aaron Long said about locking up the Dallas trio after the match, “It was a big credit to the team to get pressure on them early. We won our first duels, and we took a lot of time and space away from their attackers. Overall, they are a dangerous front three so happy for the performance and happy about the clean sheet”.
It was only their second clean sheet of the season, but all the talk coming out of this performance was the zero on the scoreboard. In four games at RBA, Red Bull has only scored two goals as their struggles to find the back of the net in front of the home fans continue.
So here is how they lined up. For the first time, this season Ashley Fletcher got the start up front, while Frankie Amaya checked back into the XI after his red card suspension, Also Coach Gerhard Struber lined Red Bull up in somewhat of a 4-4-2 diamond that was fluid throughout the game.
The game started off the first 15’ with a feeling out of sorts for both teams. Dallas got one really decent chance from Velasco after he skinned Tom Edwards on the left wing, but he shot it straight at Carlos Coronel.
But from the 15’ on, Red Bull would DOMINATE Dallas for a big chunk of the first half. Their first-half chance fell to Cristian Casseres Jr in the 18’, as the Venezuelan blasted one high over the net from outside the box from a nice one-two between Lewis Morgan & Luquinhas.
Just minutes later starting in the 21’ was a wild sequence of events that started to build momentum for Red Bull, and you thought a goal was coming.
After receiving a ball played back to him, Jose Antonio Martinez just tried to boot the ball up the field but with Luquinhas pressing him, it deflected backward, and the Brazilian was looking at a 1v1 with the Dallas keeper Maarten Paes. But Paes rushed out of his goal to head the ball away, danger averted.
WRONG, the ball then fell to Morgan, who shot the ball at a wide-open net from a little over 30 yards but for the second week in a row, the ball was cleared off the line by a defender.
Red Bull had two other half chances right after as a ball was crossed into the six-yard box on the ground, but It was just out of reach of Luquinhas. And on the ensuing corner, Morgan played the ball to Edwards at the top of the box, and he just finessed the ball over the top right corner of the goal as it stayed 0-0.
After that Dallas took the sting out of the game for the rest of the first half without Red Bull getting on the board, but the players and Struber had to have been thinking based on that half, the goals were going to come. Unfortunately, in the second half, they did not come but not because of a lack of effort.
After Morgan just kind of crossed a ball toward the box from midfield, Fletcher missed a header at the top of the area and the ball would happily fall to Omir Fernandez who saw his defender on the ground behind him. The Bronx native was 1v1 with Paes and should have gotten New York on the ball, but the Dallas goalie got a touch to it and it was cleared away from danger once again.
The biggest chance of the game from both teams was missed. Fernandez attempted to beat Peas low but in retrospect probably should have chipped the keeper who was already committed low to the ground.
For the next 35’, it was relatively quiet. We did however get to see Patryk Klimala & Ashely Fletcher as a duo for about 10 minutes and other than a few nice connecting plays, nothing too significant occurred.
Dallas though would find themselves in a spot to continue to spoil Red Bull's home form after for whatever reason John Tolkin would clear the ball upfield to nobody which led to Dallas’s only threatening chance of the game.
After some good linkup play from Dallas, the ball was played into the path of Franco Jara just inside the box, who one-timed a ball on target forcing Coronel to make a huge save just to keep hold of one point for Red Bull.
Though the game would not end before Red Bull had one last opportunity to grab all three points as Klimala had two chances to be the hero. The first came from a deflected cross from Luquinhas on the left side which fell to Klimala, who headed the ball straight at Paes; nothing really the Pole could have done there but get it on target.
But the last chance will be a big miss that Red Bull will be thinking about for a while as Morgan would cross the ball to a wide-open Tolkin on the left win who fizzed one off the hands of Paes. But he saved it into the path of Klimala who headed the ball off the crossbar and out of play.
Just a tough break for Klimala who creates so many chances but just could not jump high enough, quick enough, to get over the ball and head it down. And that’s how the game would end, with neither team finding the back of the net.
Struber after the match was obviously disappointed that Red Bull did not come away with the three points but laid out the positives.
He said that they “dominated Dallas for 85 minutes”, which they did, and “were able to do whatever we wanted in all four phases of the game”. Big positives against a very dangerous Dallas team. Struber di go on to say, “you can’t leave a performance like this with 1 point.”
Struber was also asked about why he has so much confidence in Patryk Klimala, despite the Polish ST not scoring in his past six games, he said “I see the players every day in training, I know their capabilities”.
“The goals will eventually come,” he said based on how they have been creating chances this season, but they can not come soon enough, as the pressure to get a win at home is building.
Asked about the pressure from the fans to perform at RBA Struber responded by saying, “Yes, of course. The pressure will grow when we do not win, and we make that pressure bigger and bigger on ourselves. But I have a big belief and trust in this team. We just need to keep training hard, believe in ourselves because we have the ability.”
New York still sits tied for 3rd place in the Eastern Conference with Atlanta & Toronto with 11 points (3-2-2). Now Red Bull must move on fairly quickly and forget about this result as they have a midweek game in the US Open Cup for the first time since 2019 (canceled the past two seasons due to Covid-19).
New York will head up the road to Hartford, Connecticut as they take on the USL side Hartford Athletic, who are 1-3-1 in their last fives games of the USL season. A good game for the boys to get back on the scoresheet and boost their confidence before returning to league play on the road against Orlando City down in sunny Florida in the shadows of Disney World.
https://youtu.be/DQXJ3rLzmaE
Match Stats
Final Score: NY 0, FCD 0
Possession: NY 56%, FCD 44%
Shots (On Goal): NY 20 (7), FCD 5 (2)
Fouls: NY 15, FCD 7
Corners: NY 9, FCD 0
Saves: NY 2, MTL 6
Next Game: April 20th, @ Hartford Athletic 7:00 PM EST (US Open Cup Third Round)
