Juan Carlos Osorio had a message to the Red Bulls fans following a 5-3 loss to D.C. United in a Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup qualifier at RFK Stadium on Wednesday night.
"I want to apologize to the fans, especially the fans that came here and had to suffer by coming here," the coach said. "I do apologize because we lacked character, we lacked passion, we lacked heart. The second half, completely different."
In what Osorio called "the worst game I've ever coached here with the Red Bulls," New York fell behind 4-0 in the opening 26 minutes and, despite a more spirited response after halftime, could never recover from a brutal first half.
"It seemed like we were playing a scrimmage game, no tackles, not competing for 50-50 balls," he said. "That is unacceptable and I will not accept that from anybody."
Coming off a well-fought 1-1 draw with Houston on Saturday night, and with an important Eastern Conference clash with Chicago on the horizon, Osorio used the Open Cup qualifier as a chance to give some players who haven't been getting playing time in league games a look.
In fact, he used a completely different starting XI than was on the field against Dynamo at Giants Stadium.
Osorio used the same philosophy against San Jose in the previous round of qualification and it resulted in Mike Petke's return to the starting XI and John Wolyniec getting opportunities off the bench in MLS games.
But Wednesday night's first-half debacle will likely have the opposite effect on some players.
"There was a big test for some of the guys and, if I am honest, some of them failed the test today," Osorio said, later adding, "It's not like they haven't played in a week or so. We play football every day, they play in their positions every day. Today was a very good chance for many of them to impress and they certainly didn't impress me."
While he didn't look to single out players, that Osorio brought off Khano Smith, Juan Pietravallo and Andrew Boyens at the half spoke volumes.
"As I told the guys at halftime, they do need to do the talking on the field and you all see the same game I watched," Osorio said.
Osorio lashed into his team at the half and he got the desired result in the second half. The Red Bulls played more effectively and fought for balls. They were dangerous going forward and created enough chances to possibly equalize. Rojas scored a second-half brace after Wolyniec struck one minute from halftime, and suddenly New York was in a game they didn't deserve to win in the first half.
"Coach said you better dig in, that was unacceptable and you better come out and fight in the second half," Carlos Mendes said. "Obviously we dug a pretty big hole there, but you have to come out and complete and at least the positive is that we did a lot better in the second (half)."
Osorio praised Nick Zimmerman, who made his Red Bulls debut in the second half, and Wolyniec was one of the few bright spots throughout the game.
But even the veteran forward, who scored the dramatic late equalizer against Houston on Saturday, found faults in his game.
"I did make a couple of mistakes along with everybody else," Wolyniec said. "I let (Chris) Pontius get away from me on the first goal. That's inexcusable and I missed a couple of chances, which I take very seriously. I'm not happy about that."
Wolyniec wasn't the only one unhappy.
"Everyone came out flat, we were sleeping and before we knew it we were down 3-0," Mendes said. "All over the field we were second best...The second half was better, but the first half was brutal. It was terrible."
Dylan Butler is a contributor to MLSnet.com.
