MONTREAL – The New York Red Bulls expected a physical affair on Sunday, in the opening meeting of their semi-final series against the Montreal Impact. That's indeed what they got -- eventually losing 1-0 to the home side. But now they’ll set their sights on fine-tuning their game as they head home to the cozy confines of Red Bull Arena.
“We just weren’t sharp enough in the final third to set up a few more plays,” said midfielder Sacha Kljestan. “Having said that, we had three or four good goal-scoring chances on the day, and the effort from the guys, the mentality from the guys, even when we went down a goal was great. From an overall perspective, a pretty good game -- just the result wasn’t there.”
A chippy match ended with the Red Bulls earning two fouls to one for Montreal, including a red card on Omer Damari in stoppage time.
“Playoff games are never easy to ref, and they’re always about who wants it more,” said head coach Jesse Marsch. “I expected Montreal to try to be hard, especially on our talented attacking players, and they were. I think the game was in the balance for a long time and could have gone either way. They wind up making a play, we can’t, and then we walk out 1-0.”
Bradley Wright-Phillips, the team’s leading scorer in the regular season with 24 goals, and midfielder Kljestan, who led the team in assists, were held to just two shots on each against Montreal.
“That’s been the game plan against Brad and I for the second half of the season,” Kljestan said of their opponents' physicality. “Fortunately, we’re smart enough to still be able to make plays, and I think tonight we were still able to make a few chances. We’ve just got to play our game in the second leg. We’ll be at home, we’ll be comfortable, we’ll be confident and try to go after them for an early goal.”
The Red Bulls had their chances to get a crucial away goal and head home, putting the pressure on Montreal for the second leg but couldn’t connect on their opportunities.
“We were too satisfied with trying to play long balls and find Bradley off the first play. By playing more, I think we could have really pushed them back and at 0-0 in the second half really started to put more pressure on them,” Marsch said. “But because we made some decisions to try and play long when they weren’t there, it meant that we cheaply gave the ball away, which allowed them to get out on the counter and ultimately led to the goal that they got.
“We’ll have to learn from that, we’ll have to be better when we play at home.”
