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Guenzatti heads Cosmos to victory vs. Minnesota United

NYCosmosCelebrateGoal1-AtlantaSilverbacks (Getty)

By DAN KARELL

For the first time all season, the New York Cosmos took a lead and never let it go.

Despite going down to ten-men late, a second-half header goal from Sebastian Guenzatti gave the Cosmos a 1-0 victory over Minnesota United on Saturday evening at James Shuart Stadium. Cosmos goalkeeper Kyle Reynish earned his second shutout of the season in the win.

With the 2-2 draw between the Carolina RailHawks and the Tampa Bay Rowdies on Saturday, the Cosmos moved two points clear at the top of the NASL table.

Cosmos head coach Giovanni Savarese made three changes to his starting lineup from the week before, bringing back Ayoze and Peri Marosevic, while starting Japanese youth international Satoru Kashiwase as the lone forward up top.

The continuity in the rest of the lineup seemed to make a difference for the hosts in the first half, as they possessed better than in previous matches. However, the visiting Minnesota United did very well, through on-loan midfielder Calum Mallace, to cut out the Cosmos rhythm in the middle of the park.

Without many good chances, the teams moved into the second half with an emphasis on using the wings. Minnesota created opportunities through Miguel Ibarra and Lucas Rodriguez, though Ibarra’s best chance came to nothing after a heavy touch.

The Cosmos finally took advantage of the spaces out wide with the overlapping run of Hunter Freeman down the right side in the 78th minute.

Freeman whipped in a great cross into the middle of the box, and the 22-year-old Guenzatti met the ball with a flying header that went in for a goal, the forward’s first of the season. The goal ended a streak of 258 minutes for the Cosmos without a goal from open play.

Two minutes later, the Cosmos were given a stunning blow. A studs up tackle from Freeman resulted in the right back being shown a straight red card, reducing the Cosmos to ten men. However, the hosts were able to defend well and outlast the late opportunities from Minnesota United.

Ayoze nearly gave the Cosmos a two-goal lead in stoppage time but his effort went wide of goal.

Comments

  1. I don’t mind the Cosmos being covered, This is Ives’ site. He can cover what ever he wants to cover. I think he is New Your based, so it makes sense that he cover a team that is successful and in his market. The center wheel on your mouse or “magic” thingy on your Apple mouse helps easily scroll by stories you don’t want to read.

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  2. Very happy the Cosmos are doing so well in their opening season. Senna is amazing shots are on point and dangerous and he distributions are high class.
    GO COSMOS!

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  3. I’m amazed at how people get upset over the Cosmos being covered. Personally, I’m offended by the coverage Toronto gets. They are a terrible team with awful ownership, no clue and wannabe Euro fans. They offend me!

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  4. Great win from the Cosmos, obviously still some sort of finishing problem but a win is a win. Our midfield played great, Ayoze is class and Senna is incredible on both sides of the ball. Amazing what that man is doing at his age.

    Top of the table for now, hoping for a draw or loss by the Strikers tomorrow. If we can keep this up, preferably with some bigger scorelines, we’ll be on our way to Soccer Bowl. But this short season is one hell of a tight race.

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    • You seem a bit jealous Marc about the coverage the Cosmos gets, are your team being overlooked? There is a simple reason the Cosmos catches the interrest of people. Working in the football industry and talking football all over Europe, I can tell you that most of the people talks about the Cosmos when they talk about football in the US. Galaxy and NYRB are far behind…. Especially in Europe Cosmos is what people think and talk about when it comes to football in the US.

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      • Why should we care what Europe think and talk about? Cosmos are in a lower tier and will remain there for quite some time. Without strong TV revenue the team will perpetually spend more money trying to compete with MLS than they are capable of earning.

      • Well, you should care about what the European and for that sake the rest of the worlld thinks ad Garber wants MLS to develop into a league that is acknowledged as a good league world wide. When the strongest brand the nation have in football is not playing there, that isn’t good for achieving that goal.

        The thing is Garber and a lot of the MLS supporters hopes that NYCFC will help build the MLS brand, the problem with that is that that franchise is just looked upon as a reserve team for Man City in Europe, and if MLS want their brand to develop having a reserve team in it won’t help.

        Before MLS was looked at as a league were former stars ended their careers, and only a few of them were are formr world stars (Beckham, Henry and Nesta) Now it’s looked at as a league were former stars end their career and that allows reserve teams to enter.

        It’s a pity that Garber were more after the entrance fee than looking at what a strong brand name could give to the league in future earnings. Unfortunately this is were Garber shows him self as a short sightet business man not an football man.

        It’s a pity with Cosmos in MLS, they would have had a lot more attention from the rest of the world. That would also made the league grow much more than having Man City move Gareth Barry or anyone else of their second rated players to NYCFC. Considering a former European Champion signed for the Cosmos and a former two times Champions League winner would have signed for them if not a Serie A Club came calling, the consider what players Cosmos could have attracted to MLS.

        The league would have thrived on Cosmos entering even with a lower fee as the future revenue would have grown massively with them in it. Garber has done well expanding the league, but recent choice makes me worry that he isn’t the right person to get MLS to the next stage as the NYCFC choice shows, after that: Do you seriously believ that Orlando, Oklahoma etc will bring more attention to MLS?

      • You really should know that making fun of someones statements only shows that you can’t make a sensible answer…It’s the oldest trick in the book and most people have moved past it..

      • You make a lot of statements without any proof that they are true. Show me proof that Europeans think about Cosmos and not MLS or that Cosmos can attract bigger names than MLS (hello Henry, Beckham, LD, Dempsey, et al). Prove that Cosmos is the strongest brand. You don’t know who NYCFC is going to target as players so you decide to assume the best they can hope for is Gareth Barry. Say something with truth behind it and I will respond in kind.

      • Brian:

        I written wat the truth is, you can like it or not. First of all: Dempsey and LD are stars in US yes, but saying they are world stars and comparing them to Beckham and Henry is way of. LD has one good loan stint in Everton and couldn’t get regular playing time in Germany. Dempsey has done well in Fulham, but then didn’t really make the step up at Tottenham…

        Why Cosmos is the strongest brand, even if it was the last ownership and a makeshift team, tell me about one other MLS club that has been invited to play against Man Utd or any other of the Europan giants at the European giant’s stadium.

        And when the European giants goes to the state in the summers, who do they mainly play against? MLS all-stars and other European teams, but no MLS teams. They probably won’t play against Cosmos either, but you can’t rule out Man Utd doing it as they both have Nike as kit suppliers.

        Cosmos has Fly Emirates as sponsors, tell me about a MLS team that has the same shirt sponsor as a European giant has?

        Of course with the shit loads of money NYCFC got they probably can get better players than Barry, but then again who wants to play for Man Citys reserve team.

        It seems to me like you think I’m against MLS, but the case is I just say what the toughts about MLS is in Europe. You proably read Blatters words about the lague a year or so ago. Ives blasted him in here so you must have read it. In my case I’m following the MLS, NASL and USL Pro, Streaming mathces from all leagues, but the way forward for football in US is not having NASL and MLS having a go at each other, they should join forces. That will improve football and the most important thing sometime in the future lift the USmen team into a WC contender.

        BTW: wans’t able to reply your post. So I replied here..

      • Might be that a lot of people like MLS the way its is, but do you honestly believe that Garber & Co don’t want to make it bigger better and more respected world wide?

      • Yeah right.. And how much are you being paid by the Cosmos up create a veneer of legitimacy? I think all these comments are part of a well paid ultimately doomed to fail plan.

      • “Well paid” ahahhahahaha
        That’s genius! Hahahahahaha
        He said blog posters are
        “Well paid” oh that’s just classic!!!

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