Put down Matchday 4 of the Major League Soccer season as one that provided a slice of humble pie filled with lessons for the New York Red Bulls.
After getting off to one of their best starts in franchise history, earning seven of nine points across three matches, New York went into the den of the defending MLS champions, the Columbus Crew, and was soundly beaten 3-0.
“This was a learning game, and after the game, I said the same words [to the team] that we had to learn from this game,” head coach Sandro Schwarz said. “And you saw the difference, the team that won last season the MLS Cup. They played with confidence in all positions, and you saw the speed. We had some troubles, to be honest.”
Columbus dominated nearly every facet of the match, posting 13 shot attempts with six landing on goal compared to the Red Bulls’ three attempts. The Crew held nearly 58% of the possession and held a healthy edge in corner kicks, 7-1, against their young, developing visitors.
“This is also the experience which we need sometimes, also against such a good team,” Schwarz continued. “But as I said before, we have to learn to play with this confidence. With this young team, it’s normal to get this experience sometimes and we will continue our style, and how we want to play.”
New York trailed by the 13th minute when Cucho Hernandez put Columbus in front — a long ball over the top down the left wing for Yaw Yeboah created an easy centering pass for the goal-scorer through a stretched Red Bulls defense.
The wheels fell off from there.
“I think the first lesson we will take is that we got frustrated too quickly,” Red Bulls captain Emil Forsberg said. “I had the feeling that we directly told ourselves, ‘OK, this is going to be a bad game or a hard game,’ and kind of worked from that. So that is something we have to learn, to not get frustrated, to not lose our patience so fast.”
The Crew struck twice in 10 minutes to put it beyond a shadow of a doubt in the second half. Following a turnover in the midfield by Lewis Morgan in the 56th minute, a quick break saw Hernandez play Jacyn Russell-Rowe alone on keeper Carlos Coronel for an easy finish. In the 66th minute, Aidan Morris had an easy tap-in off a corner.
Daniel Edelman, in his frustration, picked up a second yellow card in second-half stoppage time to earn a red and an early dismissal.
“I think we saw today a lot of things that we have to do better as a team like defending the ball and with the ball as well,” Forsberg said. “So, I think it was a lesson for us today. I think we lost against a better team, no question about it. I think it’s OK to have these kinds of losses. Sometimes you have them in a season. The most important thing is for us now to bounce back and how we bounce back. And I’m sure of that, I think we have been developing well. Today, we played against a better team. We did some stuff we normally don’t do so I mean it’s kind of a tough result, but we deserve to lose and yes, it’s not a good feeling. But we are going to bounce back, and we have to bounce back and do better next time.”
The Red Bulls return to action on Saturday when they host Inter Miami, which likely will not have Lionel Messi in its ranks as he will be with the Argentinian national team the night before.
