The New York Red Bulls defense of their Western Conference title got off to a rough start on Wednesday as a fluky goal and poor finishing led to a rather embarrassing 1-0 loss to the Under-17 national team.
Yes, the Western Conference title comment was meant to be funny and yes, this is the same Under-17 team that Kansas City thrashed 7-0 last weekend.
The Red Bulls started a team filled with free agents and rookies that gave up the first-half goal (a cross-come-shot from the right flank but an unidentified U-17). A more veteran side played the second half but still couldn't produce a goal.
For more details on this first scrimmage of the pre-season, check out the Red Bulls team blog, which provided a running commentary on the match.
Are you a Red Bulls fan already in panic mode, or will you take this result with a grain of salt for being a scrimmage?
Share your thoughts below.
Coach Osorio isn’t LOOKING to win preseason games.. he’s not crazy about preseason matches like some coaches are.. preseason matches don’t mean ANYTHING except FITNESS, CONDITIONING, and more FITNESS.. He wants to see who has the endurance and who’s willing to show they have what it takes to play REAL matches that MATTER.. so this isn’t as bad as it looks.. a U-17 squad scores their only chance of the match and the Red Bulls miss several chances (not to mention the numerous crossbars they hit) so it was just an unlucky game that should have went the other way but didn’t.. Nobody is going to kill themselves over a preseason scrimmage.. Let the Red Bulls prove their game when it really matters; March 19th against the Seattle Sounders FC!
grain of salt… cuervo… lime…
ok, i’m good now.
nobody tell metz.
Compare the lineup I posted above of the 2005 u17s and the 2005 DC trialists. There are many more “prospective professionals” on the u17 side.
Good 16 year olds can play. In Europe the good ones commonly play up in reserve games and occasionally make some first team appearances. The gap in the combination of skills/athleticism between our top 20 players each year and guys number 50-100 (the undrafted players trying out for MLS teams) is significant. Add to the mix that these u17s have been groomed as a TEAM for years and the trialists are thrown together – the actual result of the game means little.
In 2005 when DC barely beat the u17s they went on to finish 2nd in the east. A couple of undrafted trialists in that game, Troy Perkins and Bobby Boswell, turned out ok. Now if this was the first team losing in an official competition, it might be worth being pissed off.
As a Toronto fan, all I can say is “tee hee hee.”
I don’t care if it was a scouting game or not; adult, prospective professionals losing to a bunch of 16-year-olds. Wow.
Also, for all we know, everyone played well except the finishers. No one here saw the game yet that doesn’t stop the whininess of it all for some.
Let the pre-season play out. see what happens.
Calm DOWN, girls.
panic
People need to do a little research before they start trash talking. And think about it. Anybody we are looking at right now that is a free agent/rookie is not super stud quality. That’s the hard truth. JCO is looking for strong serviceable backups that won’t pull a Cichero. I doubt he’s convinced of anyone he saw yesterday. But seriously we are not living in Milan. We got what we got.
Slow your roll Chuck and all you other sissified chicken-sh-little whiners.
Smith is right.
POO happens. RB dominated play on the pitch. Yes they should have scored. Its a disappointing loss for sure but several of these guys had never been on the same field together and they’re playing against a well coached U17 squad. Ok its the B squad. ( I’m laughing a little bit here b’cuz I know the A squad is in South America right now ) BTW a couple of guys on the RB side were on the U17 squad last year.
Anyway, this was purely a ‘scouting’ match. It really sucks for both sides that the only goal scored seems to a have been an errant cross.
Smith:
These were players that were considered worthy of a look see. They were beaten by second string High School sophomores. I wonder about the players that “were not worthy”, how bad were they?. Maybe after the game the Red Bulls took the u-17’s to Chukee-Cheez to celebrate. If i’m Osorio, i’m pissed off.
The sky is falling! The sky is falling!
The starting line-up included almost no one who will be starting this year.
Keep in mind that this was not entirely a “rofessional” side we fielded. Many of these guys are playing for a contract.
They are amateurs. They will likely remain that way.
But don’t let the facts get in the way of your whining.
Really -Stop being whiners.
I am Metro through & through, but we have the whiniest, most cissified, complaining fan base in all of MLS.
Man up, you Nancies!
This is the U-17 B team, the fact that they lost, preseason or not. Is a JOKE.
If this were the A team I would be somewhat ok with it because the A team for the U-17 team is awesome. Renken, Jerome, Martinez, Gyua are all studs.
Considering Mendes was the only possible starting field player to start today, I wouldn’t even waste the energy to be upset.
Preseason, yes. Way too early? Sure. But no way a team of professional adult players should lose to high school kids. Ever. It’s never too early to set the tone for what is expected of our team from day one. If this was Mourinho and Inter lost ANY game to the Italian U-17’s, even a preseason one, he’d have someone’s ASS, guaranteed. We need to bring the same approach to our expectations, ie excellence at ALL times. So what if only trialists. If these are the best trialists we can bring in, it either says something about our scouting network, or about our ability to judge talent. Embarrassing, even for preseason…
I’m missing van den berg even more.
Smith is right….lighten up peeps! It is a scrimmage with scrubs on both sides for xrist sake!!
This is a totally awsome result for us USA U17 fans
For the Redbull fans? Not as good.
Smith,
Its an embarasmnet no matter how you slice it. Your a professional organization, you are expected to, down to the worst player on your potential squad, defeat and outplay a bunch of kids that can’t drive themselves to practice at any level.
Because what happens is these same scrubs end up on the roster because we think they are better than our academy prospects we always pass over, then tank in similar fashion when called into action i.e. last year’s open cup.
Send all those bums home, keep the first teamers and use our own academy kids that are already down there to pick up the scraps as i am sure each of them would be far more deserving of an opportunity to impress Osorio than the crap that was out there today.
For reference the Wizards beat that same U-17 team on Saturday 7-0 with bench and starter mix both halves. That is a bad result for pros against 16 year olds.
http://hillcrestroad.blogspot.com/2009/01/wizards-win-7-0.html
Panic mode. As always. Team was lucky to make the playoffs last year. Are they any better now?
Charlie N- i wouldnt get too confident 😛
There is a U-14 girls team here in town and there best player has a sore knee, i think the Red Bulls can take them.
People
It’ a pre-season scrimmage
Calm down
Panic mode.
We have no defense. I know the goal was suppose to be a cross, this one doesn’t concern me. But Petke, Mendes, Goldy, Leitch, and Zimmerman? That’s it?? Please. We have serious problems in the back.
A lot of the “Red Bulls” players in this scrimmage won’t even be sniffing the roster, so, whatever
A few years ago (2005) DC scraped out a 3-2 victory they barely deserved
http://dcunited.mlsnet.com/news/team_news.jsp?ymd=20050213&content_id=22249&vkey=news_dcu&fext=.jsp&team=t103
the u17s that day
GK: Bryant Rueckner
D: Amaechi Igwe (Neven Subotic 62), Ofori Sarkodie, Eric Lichaj, Kevin Alston
M: Ryan Soroka, Nik Besagno (Blake Wagner, 77), Kyle Nakazawa, Quavas Kirk
F: David Arvizu, Preston Zimmerman
4 years later a handful of them are still in college, a few are doing well (or ok) in the pros, and a few are pro busts
They got beaten by kids.
Nuff said…..
Who cares? This is about fitness and getting to know one another. Like you said, half of the game’s participants won’t even be on our roster opening day at Seattle.
Hey Ives, I have a question though. On the Red Bull Reader it said Juan Pablo Angel wouldn’t be with the team in Bradenton and they’ve agreed that he will train on his own instead so as to “maximize his performance level heading into the season”.
What does that even mean? Heard anything about this? THAT WORRIES ME.
This was a U-17 B-team right? The A-team is currently in South America.
So to be clear, I believe the Red Bulls lost to a U-17 B-team. That’s pathetic but little cause for panic. I just don’t think any of the trialists helped their case with this embarrassment.
it doesnt matter if it is pre season. Professionals should not lose to 16 year olds. How embarassing to.
Wait, I just looked at the RedBullsReader game blog.
Even the Veterans weren’t really our starters. This was mainly a bunch of rookies/trialists on parade – trying to impress Osorio.
Disappointing to not have a “magic” game where both teams (Red Bulls First Half, Red Bulls 2nd Half) gelled, but come on. First game of players who never played with each other.
Whatever.
Defense of their Western Conference title…that’s just precious.
it’s NYRB, you have to take everything with a grain of salt when it comes to them. oy to the vey.
Grain of salt.
Small amount of panic.
That said – we were GREAT in pre-season last year. And then tanked a few games in.
Red Bulls didnt have a very Veteran attack, they had a Veteran defense tho. Where’s Wolyniec?
i know this is just a preseason game, but ouch….
EDB- glad to see both BMB and Nyarko finishing… makes me happy to see our forwards actually producing (even though it is just preseason)… seems like Nyarko is doing well and hopefully he comes full swing….
I’m sorry but there is no excuse for losing to 16 year-olds. I don’t care who is on the field. They’re sophomores in high school. Way to go NYRB.
I’m sure this doesn’t mean much. The 2005 Seattle Sounders were crushed by the US U-20 team 4-1 in a preseason game (Benny Feilhaber and Danny Szetela were among the goal scorers), but went on to win the USL-1 Championship that year.
Any place we can find out the U-17 lineup?
Scrimmage or not, this is just sad.
Nice!!
FYI the Wiz beat the Fire 3-2. Though the Wiz scored all thier goals after the fire put the second unit in
Hey Ives,
I know this has nothing to do with NY Red Bull, but is there any movement on Donovan’s status at Bayern? (See, at least it’s MLS related…)
The u17 national team has been playing MLS preseason sides for years. Nothing to worry about here. The games are usually close, especially when the MLS team is early in preseason and playing trialits who don’t know each other well. Half the Red Bulls lineup probably won’t make the team.
hahahahahaha
typical