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Cooper double leads Red Bulls in romp past Union

The New York Red Bulls hadn’t won a road game in five months, but with a bye into the Eastern Conference semifinals on the line, the Red Bulls finally showed their capable of taking three points away from Red Bull Arena.

Kenny Cooper scored a pair of goals, and Thierry Henry added his own beautiful finish, to help the Red Bulls cruise to a 3-0 victory against the Philadelphia Union on Saturday afternoon.

The victory essentially clinched third place in the East for the Red Bulls, who will now face the winner of Saturday’s match between D.C. United and the Chicago Fire (if the teams tie, the Red Bulls would play D.C. United).

The Union went into the match without injured starter Sheanon Williams, and without Freddy Adu, who was left out of the match-day roster for the second straight match. Without Adu, the Union offense was reduced to playing long balls to Jack McInerney, who came up short in his bid to make it five straight games with a goal.

The Red Bulls opened the scoring in the 13th minute when Cooper converted a penalty drawn by Tim Cahill, who was brought down by Carlos Valdes in the penalty area.

Henry made it 2-0 by racing past Valdes and beating Zac MacMath from close range for his 15th goal of the season.

Cooper added his second of the day, and 18th of the season, when he raced onto a Connor Lade pass and beat MacMath with a low shot to put the match out of reach.

The match marked the second straight shutout for the Red Bulls. The back four of Heath Pearce, Markus Holgersson, Rafa Marquez and Connor Lade looked sharp again, with Lade and Pearce pressing the flanks and Holgersson and Marquez holding up well against McInerney.

The loss ends a disappointing season for the Union, which will now head into the off-season with plenty of questions to answer, ranging from whether the team will keep Freddy Adu, to whether the team will be able to find some key pieces in the international player market.

Here are the match highlights:

What did you think of the Red Bulls’ performance? Disappointed with the Union’s display?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. Also, terrible coverage by NBC. To listen to listen to Light and Power representatives talk about how they are preparing for the storm more than 48 hours before it hits landfall; are NBC executives crazy? I’m all for a brief update but they went on and on ….

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    • +100000000000

      If NBC is going to turn into the weather channel for 20+ minutes of first half…. Put the game on NBC sports network!!! NBC missed the first two RBNY goals. Crazy.

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    • Unbelievable. One-third of the game missed because of a weather update. God knows they wouldn’t have interrupted football for the weather update. Either NBC should dedicate their coverage to the game or put it on NBC Sports, simple as that.

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  2. Awesome result. I hope the first game in the New York vs. DC series is played the evening of November 4th, which gives the region the most time to recover from Sandy and Frankenstorm.

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  3. Thank goodness Freddy Adu is out nursing and injury…..if he was in the game he would have been blamed….blamed for “lack of defense”, “lack of scoring”, maybe even just losing or better yet not able to carry and saving the Union….lol, how can you make an impact on a team like this…….and if Philly is depending on Mcinerney…..damn

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    • Uumm…..I take the “out for nursing an injury back…..this is what hackworth said about Adu:
      “Adu had a quad injury that forced him out of three straight games from Sept. 29-Oct. 6 before returning to start in last Saturday’s 3-1 loss to Houston. Hackworth confirmed that the injury wasn’t related to Adu not dressing for the last two games”….what??
      “It was just a coach’s decision,” the Union manager said. “There’s a lot of competition. At this point, Freddy played last Saturday and we wanted to give other guys an opportunity.”……Give who opportunity, Michael Farfan? Keon Daniel? Danny Cruz? This doesn’t look good for Adu

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  4. Good game. Naturally, the team that’s getting blown out always looks more dangerous as the game goes on. If only the Union had a strong tactical finisher on their roster…a player who could attack the defense and open passing lanes…a player who could FINISH…a player who was, say, a prodigy of Ghanian descent. Ah, well. I guess we’ll never know.
    Very thoughtful of Henry to wave farewell to the Sons of Ben.

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  5. Well, at least the Philly front office can’t say the team is “close” to a playoff team. Good lord that was tough to watch. The highlight of the game was when a NY supporter decided to fight some cops and got tazed for his trouble.

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  6. Cooper better be brought back next year, Henry and him are building such great chemistry. Hopeful the new coach puts Cahill right behind them on the field so the attack will be good to go.

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