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The apocalypse in Annapolis (How the Red Bulls lost to a USL-2 team)

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                                                         Photo by ISIphotos.com

So how does an MLS team lose to a USL-2 team? There were plenty of factors that went into the Red Bulls’ 2-0 loss to Crystal Palace Baltimore on Tuesday night, but none of them is as important as the simple fact that the Red Bulls team that took the field played terribly.

Yes, the Red Bulls would have had a much better chance to avoid the upset if Dave Van Den Bergh, Dane Richards and Seth Stammler played, but with a second Western Conference road game in six days looming, it made sense to rest those players. Juan Carlos Osorio called on his reserves to show something in what was a golden opportunity and far too many of them wasted the chance.

Instead of making a case for more playing time, too many Red Bulls players showed little as they were outhustled and outworked by an inspired Crystal Palace team. The reality is that the performance shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise.

It has been no secret all season that the Red Bulls roster was thin and in dire need of anywhere from three to five new players. The club is addressing that today with a press conference to announce the signings of Jorge Rojas and Juan Pietravallo, but those signings didn’t come soon enough to help a Red Bulls lineup that was short on talent, and failed to deliver any of the type of effort that has helped the short-handed squad get results in MLS play.

As much credit as Crystal Palace deserves for the win, it didn’t exactly beat a juggernaut. Here’s an interesting stat for you: $425,010. That’s the combined salaries of the Red Bulls starting XI last night, a total that averages out to about $38,637. That is still more than what the Palace players are making but just shows that the lineup they faced didn’t exactly have much star power.

The Red Bulls didn’t play like a hungry group of reserves eager for a better chance and bigger salary. Instead, they went through the motions like the match was a scrimmage or training session. Crystal Palace didn’t see it that way and fought the Red Bulls to every ball and jumped into scuffles at every opportunity (earning several cards in the process). The game meant something to them and it showed.

That didn’t show for the Red Bulls, which was sad considering the pitiful history of the club, and even sadder because of the fact that more than 50 fans made the more than 200-mile trek to Annapolis for the game. Those fans sang their hearts out for 90 minutes (not 70 or 80, but 90) and made the tiny High School field the game was played on sound like a Red Bulls home game.

The singing didn’t help though. Instead, we saw Mike Magee struggle in what might be one of his last matches as a Red Bull. We saw rookie John Gilkerson play terribly after showing so much promise against Chivas de Guadalajara. We watched Juan Carlos Osorio use Chris Megaloudis as the lone forward in a 4-2-3-1 when Megaloudis was in no way equipped to handle that role when John Wolyniec certainly was. We watched Gordon Kljestan struggle badly for 45 minutes in his first action with the Red Bulls (though you can probably chalk that up to nerves).

What we saw was just plain ugly, and unfortunately just another sad footnote for a club that already had enough sad footnotes.

What did you think of the Red Bulls’ loss last night? Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. This is so depressing… I hope JCO knows what he’s doing, and that the new signings boost our team. I swear that the whole team looks depressed, especially after the loss of Altidore.

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  2. chg- in all honesty, if the MLS doesnt incorporate Rel/Prom in the future (not near future), you’ll start seeing the USL catch up to the quality of the MLS…. reasoning being the quality in the US will continue to grow, and with limited teams and limited spots, the extra players will need to go elsewhere, and the USL is right there in place…

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  3. Hey – at least all y’all made it one more round than my Columbus Crew…

    And my backup was the Carolina Railhawks. Oh well. Guess I’m cheering for CPB as the lowest team left in the tournament. I just want another non-MLS side to win again, since my guys can’t take the title.

    I think the Red Bulls struggles, coupled with other losses by MLS sides shows that outside of the USMNT and Olympic players, the talent pool in the US isn’t that deep, and that some really talented foreign players are willing to play cheap to live/work in the US.

    An increase in the MLS salary cap might make a difference, but the paying mediocre players more to play on reserve squads won’t matter too much.

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  4. Terry, Annapolis is hardly the “backfields of Maryland” even if it was at a High School stadium.

    Get a grip: your club lost, this match mattered, this tournament matters, they lost because Crystal Palace Baltimore outplayed the players they trotted out. Deal with it.

    I know what you’re feeling right now, I’m a DC fan who watched his team lose to Harrisburg in a cow pasture in Amish Country. It wasn’t fun. The first step is admitting that USL-2 players are better than MLS reserves.

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  5. This was sad no matter how you look at it, and the roster they chose to play is their own fault. I REALLY don’t agree with people who think the Open Cup doesn’t matter. It should matter to everyone. It’s no F.A. Cup, but it’s all we have. It needs to be built up. Just ridiculing it is pointless. Does anyone think a tournament can just start out and be big time right away? Yes, I know it’s been around for a long time, but for obvious reasons, I don’t think the period prior to MLS involvement matters. Upsets don’t have too much magic if a team just plays a reserve team, or says they don’t really care. If you’re not going to have any respect for the tournament you might as well do away with it, but I think this could eventually become our F.A. Cup and provides the lower division teams a chance to have their moment in the sun. JCO is becoming a bigger and bigger joke every game. For a franchise that has won NOTHING, EVERYTHING should be important. As for damaging your season by taking the Open Cup too seriously, they seem to be able to do it all around the world and they have even more tournaments. If there’s problems for MLS they need to resolve them before they destroy this tournament. As for RBNY, I really think they should have put ALL of their effort into winning this. They surely don’t have much chance of winning MLS. At this point they will be hard pressed to make the playoffs.

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  6. I was in attendance last night. The game was one of the most disheartening spectacles that I’ve ever witnessed. The team’s lackluster performance is indefensible. This is the absolute lowest point in all my years of supporting this club. Just awful!!!

    Hats off to Palace though. I hope they win the cup.

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  7. Ives, thanks for shouting out the ESc members who made it down there last night. And thanks to Yanki for giving us a kind word too… even if you are a DC supporter.

    Your analysis of the match was spot on, especially with the lack of effort of some of our players. We would swing the ball all over the park, and I’m sure if goals were awarded for holding the ball in the middle of the park for 10 minutes at a time we would have won comfortably!

    Over an hour with a man up and we couldn’t manage to break down the defense once! We always resorted back to pounding the ball in from outside the box, hoping to outsmart two defenders with our one target man! BRILLIANT! The lack of creativity killed me, I just don’t understand it…

    As for the comments on here about this not being a tournament worthy of serious efforts…. look at the MLS campaign, you have 30 games total in a season… you need at least 10-12 wins to finish in a decent playoff spot. Then you have to win all your series plus win the final… that’s a lot of winning for anyone. And if you’ve seen the RB record lately it’s a whole lot more winning than we look like doing! I love this team, make no mistake about that. But seriously we sent out a sub par squad last night and got beat by a team who has much more talent than their division of affiliation would have you believe. We had to win 4 matches between now and Aug 24th and we were going international next season!!! ONLY 4! We could of focused on the Open Cup and still had two full months of league play left afterward to see about securing the final spot in the playoffs… But it’s cool if you want to trade in 4 wins for at least 16.

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  8. of course JCO says he wants his team to win some hardware ! but can you take a tournament seriously when your playing in the backfields of maryland? come on !

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  9. Thank you for speaking the truth about the supporters that did show up from NYC/NJ last night. Some other individuals that have written lies about us and our support in the final 15 need a buring bag of dog sh*t on their front door.

    You nailed the Red Bulls performance last night but I would say that there was quite a bit of talent on display from CPUSA as well and that should be equally acknowledged regardless of their income.

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  10. Seems with the two latest RBNY signings that some of the boys got wind of it before the announcements and the game and realize they’ll soon be “toast” to RBNY. Maybe they are resigned to be out and wouldn’t expend the energy to make a good show.

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  11. “whats wrong with you morons? wasn’t it obvious that JCO and the team could care less about a game against a USL2 team? for the love of god, they were playing on a high school field ! how can you take a tournament like that seriously? ! its a f*$@ joke.”

    Terry, I guess some of us are just a bit confused because yesterday JCO was quoted in a Jersey paper that they were taking it seriously because they want some hardware.

    The other reason that there is confusion is that the USOC winner gets a bid in the CONCACAF Champions’ League next year. That’s why some people view the tournament more seriously than they ever did before.

    Winning MLS Cup is a hard, long road. The road to the USOC Cup and the Chamipons’ League automatic bid is a lot shorter campaign for MLS clubs.

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  12. Terry leach – cant tell if your being sarcastic or not… the USOC is incredibly valueable, and no team should be taken lightly even if they are playing on a HS field and their names happened to be the FudgePackers O.o

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  13. whats wrong with you morons? wasn’t it obvious that JCO and the team could care less about a game against a USL2 team? for the love of god, they were playing on a high school field ! how can you take a tournament like that seriously? ! its a f*$@ joke . i want them to play hard against la, dc, chicago, and houston .. not the louisiana catfish, wyoming tinkerbells, and the idaho fudgepackers ! !

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