There were a handful of teams that were worthy candidates of this week's MLS Team of the Week honor, but one stood out above the rest.
While the Los Angeles Galaxy impressed in beating Chivas USA, and New England showed great resolve in scoring a road victory against D.C. United, no team showed as much as the New York Red Bulls did in securing a 1-0 victory at Qwest Field against the Seattle Sounders in one of the best regular season MLS matches in recent memory.
The Red Bulls combined tenacious defending with strong midfield play to match the effort of a strong Seattle squad that never could break through despite a plethora of corner kicks and free kicks.
In case you missed the match, or would like to see highlights, here are highlights from the Red Bulls' 1-0 win vs. Seattle:
What did you think of the Red Bulls' performance this week? Which team got your vote for MLS Team of the Week?
Share your thoughts below.
Can I nominate Richard’s miss in front for WORST OF THE YEAR honors?
…not to mention ending their road woes.
And that was a great freakin game for any soccer enthusiast to watch, action packed for all 90 minutes. too bad my team was on the wrong end of it.
The first installment of Silent in Seattle?
RBNY
Defense was phenomenal – what was it? 17 shots and 14 corners and not a single one of those opportunities ended up in the back of the net? Why. DEFENSE.
Offense was there – where – the 1 goal. It’s all that mattered. Could they have done better? Definitely had 3-4 great chances afterwards along with their counters once the “SS” started pushing 9 men up.
RBNY-SS match was a full on 90 minute grudge match. It had everything – counters, aerial, wings and direct attacks from both teams.
Too many haters out there, including Zigi, can’t admit the fact that New York Red Bulls are for real. Everything they heard and saw during preseason is real. Get used to it!
Dominated is too strong. They controlled more posession and had more chances but I’d say the red bulls created the more dangerous chances.
As a Seattle fan I must say that I really enjoyed the match even with the loss. NY is a respectable team to lose to this year, but in this one I think we lost the game on our own by not being able to put any of our chances away. Great game to watch! Credit to NY for trying to play offensive soccer on the road!
Robin and I were in the same stadium but at a very different game.
And I’m also guessing Robin doesn’t watch a lot of MLS games outside of coming to Qwest. Because that game was vastly superior, in terms of passing and such, to 90 percent of the MLS games I have watched in the past five years.
Yes there were some bad passes, but it wasn’t the ping-pong long-ball crud that often passes for soccer in MLS.
I give credit to Red Bull. Their lines were amazingly compact and organized. Once they got the goal we just could not break it down in any way that earned a direct shot on goal — which explains the huge amount of corners.
Sad but true: The Sounders really missed Nate Jaqua.
If you saw how DC played you would have realized your error!
+1 I think I predicted that shutting out and shuting up Seattle some where on these boards. 🙂
(yes I do know Kansas City was team of the week last week)
Hmmm…. how many other “Team of the Week” articles have you seen on here? Interesting to see this proclamation the one week the Red Bulls were the best.
(SBI-You do realize there have been two weeks in the season and two Team of the Week posts, right? Not sure what’s so tough to figure out about that. You might want to find something else to complain about, or you could try actually bringing something constructive to the conversation.)
And you are a putz!
April Fool’s was a week ago. Yes, NY had a decent game on the road, but I wasn’t impressed by either team. NY by no means dominated the game.
How on earth could that be better than any of the other results. I didn’t even watch the DC United loss, but I bet New England played better. At least they got 2 goals on the road.
Not the 7 minutes version though right ?
I just saw the goals ?
red cow. hilarious!!!!
because a cow is a GIRL. it’s an insult! keep ’em coming.
btw, the turnovers were because of new york’s tight form and discipline.
Hey does anyone know the best place online to get a USA 2010 Away jersey? Bigsoccer? Nike? US Soccer? ESPN?
I want to get a Davies jersey.
I disagree. Phenomenal is definitely not the word of choice here. I think Robinswood is pretty spot on in his analysis. The first half I thought was fairly solid, but the last 30 minutes of the game was painful. Unnecessary turnovers from both sides, poor decision-making and RBNY hoofing it down the field to try and spring the counter with little success. I was excited for the 2nd half in hopes to see a quality match, but I ended up with frustration. Seattle were very threatening at times but credit to Red Cow for holding down the fort and starting off the season well.
Enjoyed the game, didn’t really care who won or lost, but I still think Bouna is going to cause difficulties for NY before it’s all said and done.
I’m a die hard RB fan but a bit of a soccer snob. I admit it has been hard to watch the last few years and at times have turned them off. But man, that game was one of the best to watch. They played as a team and worked for each other. It was great see…
I’m not too much of a RBNY fan, but damn, i’m proud of them for shutting out and shutting up Seattle… AT SEATTLE!
It was a good game to watch, albeit frustrating watching so many wasted opportunities. RBNY does look like a completely different team this year. They didn’t create much, but they did a great job of limiting clear scoring chances. Seattle could/should have put a few away, but NYRB didn’t hand them anything, and that’s a big part of the game.
Based on all the comments, I need to get FSC. I have a feeling I’m going to miss a lot of good matches.
All of the above…and don’t forget to include Lindpere and Ream–guys who came in with a clean slate and don’t give a rat’s a** about what happened last year. Everyone at that franchise, from the front office down to the bench, has that “I am NOT going back to the zoo” mentality right now…
The pace of the game is what you hope MLS is. Especially compare to that Rapids/Fire game that was so much of what I hate watching the league for sometimes( Slow & hardly accurate passing, tentative on ball technique). I was on edge watching NY/Seattle. Who didn’t see that don’t know whiff!!!
Just happy to see Seattle lose ;).
See that up there over your heads? That’s a low-flying joke.
How much of this credit should go to Backe. Is Richie Williams more of the reason for NYRB success, or has Backe really put a stamp on things in NY.
seattle should have won that game, don’t know how they can take 17 shots and 12 corners and not score, but that’s the breaks sometimes. RB did what they needed to earn the victory; they defended well, remained organized, and took advatage when it counted to get a goal. congrats to them; they deserve it.
Seattle dominated a majority of the game and created more chances. But Red Bulls put it in the back of the net.
Ives said recent memory, and I think it was more due the quality of play. RB didn’t sit back and just put 11 behind the ball. This was like an “adult” game. Yes they defended with all 11, then countered. They didn’t kick it 40 yards downfield and wait for Seattle to come back again. RB took chances, and Seattle was all over them.
I thought the quality of play was phenomenal, one of the better quality 1-0 games I’ve seen (in any league–and I’m somewhat of a Eurosnob) in a long time.
they do have highlights for all the games.
Good one Ives. The most important thing to me about how this match played out, was that it was exciting football played for 90 minutes. Both teams fought hard and there were many story-lines throughout the match, this game reminded me of some Premier matches I have seen, where there is action from the first whistle to the last second of stoppage time. GO RED BULLS!!!
Ditto, plus shutting them out in front of 36,000 people. I think that deserves TOTW, and I’m a Galaxy supporter.
Oh, and Ives isn’t even a USMNT fan, what makes you think he supports NYRB?
“one of the best regular season MLS matches in recent memory.”
agreed, this match was end to end with plenty of chances on both end with gritty defense in the middle. Seattle showed off their speed and technicality while RBNY showed off their brand spankin new defense. an excting 90+ minutes.
Union supporter… I wanted to hate RBNY but they played a nice game on Saturday. Looking forward to the game in Chester come October (I believe)
Okay. First off, RB totally deserved this win. I was there. But to call this one of the best regular season matches in MLS history is a joke. It was a solid win against an opponent who was hobbled (neither Ljungberg or Riley could run) and as flat as a team can possibly be. The corners? Whenever you’ve got Zak running at you, you’re going to give up some corners. Seattle by count passed the ball over 25 times during the match to RB players who were simply standing there startled to receive the gift. RB did their fair share of turning it over too. It was NOT pretty. The crowd wasn’t silent because we were getting beat (heck, been there, done that), but because the Sounder players were so incredibly inept and except for a couple of nice build-ups by RB, probably the most boring match every played at Qwest.
So, yes, give RB plenty of credit for coming in, playing aggressively, and taking three points in a tough, tough place to play (and the DO deserve that credit). But don’t dishonor the game AND yourself by calling that debacle an example of high level soccer or even an exciting game–because if you read the Seattle press, you’d read over and over again that they have never heard Qwest so silent and it wasn’t because we were losing!
RB’s got a solid team this year with blazing speed from the mids forward. I expect to see them at or near the top in the East this year–congrats to them for a great turnaround.
MLS should get highlights, like the FSC channel puts together, up on their website for all the games.
Very cool.
Since you can buy the MLS package, they must have access to them ? Throw a commercial in front to make a dime, but more importantly get season ticket holders revved up to keep spending money on MLS.
No way is this NJ-bias from Ives. The Red Bulls actually look good this year–I watched the whole game and I didn’t find myself complaining about the level of play. Obviously the coaching is much better this year because a lot of these players were with the Red Bulls last year but they look much better now!
If not the Red Bulls, who else? This was a game the Red Bulls were a huge underdog, to the point of Sigi Schmid after the game showing a great deal of denial. He said that Seattle kept attacking and that the Red Bulls, outside of the goal they scored, they had nothing. Actually the best 3 opportunities by the Red Bulls did not even include the one that led to the goal. One by Angel, one by Richards (from Borman) and one by Chinn in the final moments.
So, who else should be the team of the week?
Really? Who else deserves team of the week? Maybe LA, but Chivas really sucks right now. Maybe New England, but they were dominated by DCU for a lot of the game. I think this is fair.
Sometimes ugly wins.
linux lol
I’m assuming he means the size, it’s all messed up where you can only see half of it.
While I admittedly haven’t seen the other teams play, Seattle clearly has an excellent team, so for the Red Bulls to go to Seattle and win there on the road for the first time in about 18 months is a huge accomplishment.
Who knows how the season will go, but so far the team is night and day compared to last season, and you have to hand it to Backe and company for getting these guys to understand their roles defensively. It’s made a huge difference. It’s still early, but if they put forth this type of effort and can stay relatively healthy, they will have a chance in every game they play.
And while Ives doesn’t need me or anyone else to defend him, he’s not a fan of the Red Bulls. If anything, his coverage of the team has dipped significantly with the new focus of the site.
If you don’t have Silverlight on your computer, or your computer can’t run it (PowerPC macs, most mobile devices, any computer running Linux)… You’re out of luck.
Another great decision by MLS for it’s video content…
(SBI-I’ve replaced that video with a YouTube version, which should be fine for now.)
Are you saying going into the most hostile stadium in the league and taking all three points is not deserving of TOTW?
Impressive start for the Galaxy and Redbulls. Given the quality of opponent I’d have to give it to NY.
Yeesh. Anytime Ives says anything nice about the Red Bulls, or features them… people criticize him. Just ridiculous. He’s stated numerous times he’s not – AND covers MLS and soccer in general with more impartiality than almost anyone I’ve read.
And, we get it – you’re not a Red Bulls fan.
Team of the week? Now you are just Red Bull gloating. Take a cold shower.
Is there anyway to fix the video or is it just my browser?
(SBI-It was the video. I swapped it out for another one that works properly.)
We get it, you’re a Red Bulls fan…