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New York Red Bulls at Chivas USA: Running Commentary

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The Red Bulls are in Home Depot Center tonight to take on Chivas USA in a key match for both teams. The Red Bulls are hoping to keep pace in the stacked Eastern Conference while the Goats are looking to exact some revenge for their loss at Giants Stadium earlier this month.

If you will be watching the match, or if you want to follow the match, you can check in here. Feel free to share your thoughts, opinions and some play-by-play in the comments section below.

I will be doing a running commentary so check in for that throughout the night.

Enjoy the match.

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FINAL- Red Bulls 1, Chivas USA 1. The Goldthwaite blunder was painful but the road point is about what the Red Bulls deserved today. They played hard, but not as well as last week. Jon Conway, Dane Richards and Dave Van Den Bergh played well tonight. Sinisa Ubiparipovic, Kevin Goldthwaite and Seth Stammler didn’t have the best days. That’s three straight matches without a loss for the Red Bulls, who have a busy week ahead of them.

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92nd minute– Chivas USA running out of time. Goldthwaite does well to head a ball clear of danger.

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90th minute– We’re in stoppage time. Somebody tell Goldthwaite.

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89th minute– Can the Red Bulls hold on here?

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88th minute– Nice play by Boyens to hold up Justin Braun just enough to prevent a goal.

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84th minute– Van Den Bergh with a shot on goal. That’s as close as the Red Bulls are going to get based on how their attack looks.

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82nd minute– Mike Magee with a wasted cross. He hasn’t shown much tonight either.

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80th minute– Luke Sassano for Seth Stammler. Interesting sub, although the way Stammler’s been playing with a yellow card it might be cautious.

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75th minute– Will we see Danleigh Borman tonight? I hope so.

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73rd minute– Oscar Echeverry looks terrible since coming in. I think his knee is bothering him and I wonder if he stays in the whole way.

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69th minute– Has anybody seen Seth Stammler?

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67th minute– Will the Red Bulls create any good chances? I wonder where it will come from.

Jorge FLores is on for Bornstein. THis kid is dangerous.

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66th minute– Chivas USA is picking up the pace here as the Red Bulls central midfield has disappeared.

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62nd minute– Chivas USA has taken the foot off the gas, allowing the Red Bulls to breath a bit.

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61st minute– Yep, that’s the sub. With one sub left, I think we need to see Borman come in.

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60th minute– Mike Magee looks set to come in, probably for Ubiparipovic, who did nothing today.

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55th minute– The Red Bulls midfield looks shaky right now. Stammler and Mendes have lost it a bit this half.

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54th minute– The Red Bulls bring in Echeverry for Wolyniec. Echeverry is coming off a good game in the friendly against Chivas de Guadalajara.

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52nd minute– We’re back in the second half and Conway has already made TWO great saves, including an unreal save on a redirected shot. Chivas USA has all the momentum right now.

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HALFTIME– I have to say that Goldthwaite hasn’t looked comfortable at left back tonight and that blunder was the clearest evidence. I won’t fault Jeff Parke at all for that one because there was no pressure coming on Goldthwaite so Parke just ran upfield. WOW.

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HALFTIME- On basically the last kick of the half, Goldthwaite just gifted the Goats a goal and some confidence heading into half in a game the Red Bulls had total control of. It will be interesting to see how that affects the Red Bulls, who had been playing very well up to that point.

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48th minute- GOAL CHIVAS USA. WOW. What a mistake. Unbelievable. Goldthwaite lazily sends a pass square to Jeff Parke, who wasn’t paying attention. Razov takes it and finishes it off to tie the game. WOW.

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47th minute– Red Bulls have done very well this first half of squashing the Goats’ few build-ups and controlling things.

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43rd minute– Good observation by Shep Messing. Van Den Bergh has done well to neutralize Sacha Kljestan, the most dangerous player Chivas USA has.

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41st minute– Dave Van Den Bergh has a world-class left foot and a high school right foot.

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39th minute– A lot of passes turned over by the Red Bulls but I like the ideas I’m seeing from this group.

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38th minute– Good work from the Red Bulls midfield today. Mendes and Stammler are breaking things up and Richards and Van Den Bergh are keeping the Chivas USA defense busy.

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33rd minute– SAVE by Hunter Freeman to take a ball off the line after Conway was caught off his line. WOW.

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31st minute– Navarro isn’t missing any calls here. His whistle has been going off over and over.

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30th minute– Sorry folks but I’m not buying that elbow as card-worthy. Boyens was jumping and the arm swing wasn’t that unnatural.

Will the Red Bulls be able to protect this lead? They need to take advantage of set pieces, where the Goats look vulnerable.

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25th minute- GOAL RED BULLS!!!! Dave Van Den Bergh curls a free kick past everybody, including a fooled Brad Guzan.

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21st minute– Dane Richards needs to finish that breakaway. Guzan did well to take away the near post, but Richards’s shows once again that his finish ability is suspect.

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20th minute– The Red Bulls midfield isn’t keeping the ball enough and all this knocking it around the back is risky against a team like Chivas USA.

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17th minute– Neither team has taken control yet, but Chivas USA is certainly capable of creating
something quickly.

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16th minute– I still worry about Kevin Goldthwaite sometimes. You wonder if Goldthwaite is having flashbacks of his last game against Chivas USA at Home Depot Center. For those of you who don’t remember, Goldthwaite got torched repeatedly before being injured in a Chivas USA blowout last season.

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9th minute– Wolyniec gets the start tonight and I think this game is important for Wolyniec’s future with the team. With Oscar Echeverry working his way back, Juan Pablo Angel close to returning, and Dane Richards being used as a forward lately, Wolyniec could struggle for minutes if he doesn’t show something tonight.

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7th minute– If you’re wondering why Mauricio Navarro, a Canadian, is reffing this match, some Canadian refs do MLS games as part of a ref exchange program thanks to the presence of Toronto FC in the league. Navarro is solid.

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6th minute– Dane Richards off to a good start tonight. Will be interesting to see if he can school Francisco Mendoza like he did the last time these teams met. He’s on his way.

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2nd minute– Looks like a 4-2-3-1 for the Red Bulls tonight, with John Wolyniec as the lone striker.

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1st minute– We’re under way.

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PRE-GAME– Will the Red Bulls play with the same intensity as in recent games? They’ll need to in order to win tonight.

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PRE-GAME- Not sure what the delay is here.

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PRE-GAME– John Wolyniec gets the nod tonight, with Oscar Echeverry on the bench. Kevin Goldwaite is back in the lineup.

Comments

  1. Thanks Johnny Walker’s Bad Back. At least someone is paying attention. See, Conway was NOT amazing; he made two big saves.

    Pssst, Bruce Arena was a keeper. He knows talent (at that position), hence his nat’l title at UVA and work with DC. Keller was never higher in the pecking order than Friedel (another Wookie of a keeper) until Arena was in charge. Size doesn’t make you a better keeper: Jon Busch (formerly with Columbus, now with Chicago) has better career stats on average teams because he controls his box and defense far better than his 5’8″ would leave you to believe.

    As a keeper, you get it or you don’t. Conway is a shot-stopper, he isn’t a good distributor (please explain the miskick in the second half) or tactician.

    On the blunder, he needs to:

    1) slow the attacker, make them think,

    2) try for the save

    or

    2a) make the forward bend the ball around so…

    3) the defender has a chance to clear the ball off the line.

    Yes, it’s a dumb play, but he has to defend the play better and if the team doesn’t back him up (and Parke and Goldy were on their horses headed back to clear the ball if need be) then you can completely vilify Goldy for the pass.

    Conway can stop shots. Anyone could stop shots. He’s an attractive height, wildly inconsistent and has no mind for the game. He makes dumb plays; really, really dumb plays. He’s not a student of the game and playing in goal requires you to know every best play in every situation.

    He makes those big saves so you would think that he should have the knowledge to make the smart plays as well. Twice in the first half he let his defender shield a player off a ball that we running out of bounds for almost 20-30 yards. That’s leaving a lot up to chance. If the defender falls or is beat to the ball before its out, you’ve suddenly created a very pressure-packed situation when simply collecting the ball would have sufficed. He needs to grab the ball.

    He doesn’t talk to his defense (and certainly doesn’t have their confidence) as he never called anyone off the ball in the second half where he wrecked Boyens. His mouth didn’t move at all.

    I am sure he’s a very nice guy. I have heard as much. He just isn’t going to pull wins out of potential ties or losses (like Cannon, Busch, Hartman, Reis) do. Big saves might look good on TV, but that isn’t what makes a keeper great.

    If that was the case, we’d still be talking about how great Jorge Campos was. We’d be calling Bruce Grobbelaar an all-time great.

    Reply
  2. The Bulls played well for the first 35 minutes then tired and the “Brain Fart” ensues as a result. This was the BUlls 5th game in 13 days and they looked spent midway thru the game vs Chivas. Conway was terrific again and he kept the Bulls in the game. Nice goal by VDB,but we need a striker real bad! Hopefully Angel will be back for the

    game on Friday. Here are my player ratings for this game:

    Conway 8 MOTM Made two critical saves… I would have given him a 9/10 but he wasn’t vocal enough to stop the Brain Fart from happening

    Freeman 7 had a good game but had his hands full with Bornstein moving forward so he couldn’t attack as much

    Parke 4 Had a decent game until he spaced at the end of the 1st half and was part of giving up the goal

    Boyens 6 Played OK but not as good as last game vs. Guadalajara… The,effects of the busy schedule showed as he resorted to fouling towards the end of the game

    Goldy 3 Creator of last night’s and the Red Bull’s 2nd worst Brain Fart ever.. I still think Mendes’s own goal vs NE tops this one

    though. Goldy cannot play left back…leave him in the middle and play Gilkerson or VDB there!

    Richards 7 Deadliest player for the Bulls… if only he had a decent shot on goal.

    Stammy 6 Seemed gassed in the 2nd half… stiffled Chivas’s attack most of the game

    Mendes 6 See Stammy..

    VDB 7 Lovely Free Kick goal… gave some lovely thru balls to Richards

    Woly 5 The Emperor and Curtin were all over him so he couldn’t do much all by himself..

    Subs:

    Etch 3 The Yang to Wednesday’s Ying…

    Magee 4 El Culo was basically ineffective

    Sassano Not on long enough

    Anyway a point on the road is better than no point but oh 3 points

    would have been like Gold!

    Reply
  3. Shawn, you’re 100% correct on Conway…he’s the most frustrating keeper in the league. It’s a constant rollercoaster ride with him in net…

    There’s a reason Arena went after Waterreus last year, and it wasn’t just senility or indifference.

    Reply
  4. Conway can make great saves but the routine stuff that you teach to 12-13 year olds, the dude messes up. He drives me nuts. Imagine sitting at Giants Stadium next to me while I pick apart EVERYTHING this dude does.

    He’s the Red Bulls’ version of Guillermo Mota. I have season tix but won’t go to the Corner Pub because I might just start berating him.

    And we have mutual friends.

    Ugh.

    Technically, he’s a mess. Does some spectacular stuff, but he’s a 6’6″ Frankenstein.

    Reply
  5. Before the game, I would’ve taken the result, so I won’t get too worked up over it. I know the Red Bulls gave up a terrible goal, but they also cleared 2 balls off the line and had Conway make a couple of great saves so it probably evened out.

    As for who played well: Richards, van den Bergh, Freeman, Parke, Boyens. It’s debatable to me about Conway. Stammler and Mendes had good 1st halfs, but did not carry it over after the break.

    Reply
  6. Isn’t it a little weird that if Galaxy fans want to catch the game tomorrow they have to watch at 9 a.m. on a Sunday morning?

    Free kick Chivas. Kljestan to take. Flies right by Talley and Braun for a goal kick. That was close.

    Reply
  7. Echeverry has only had one or two decent games. I didn’t understand that acquisition when the coach was complaining about needing attacking mid and/or left back, but with Jozy gone, at least we have someone up front with JPA hurting.

    His first touch is pretty bad, but Dane doesn’t do much more with his.

    Reply
  8. Mendoza has been good on the defensive side of the ball since he was moved to left back. That said, Richards is basically operating by himself up top.

    Stammler takes Harris out with a bad tackle. Looked more clumsy than malicious. Ref keeps the card in his pocket, which is probably the right call.

    Sassano in for Stammler.

    Reply
  9. The Red Bulls have only scored more than 1 goal three times this season. They have not scored more than 2 times in any single game. And it has been more than a month since they have scored multipled goals in a game (A May game against the Galaxy).

    Reply

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