The past eight days have seen the New York Red Bulls traveling all over North America. A trip that began last Saturday with a 3-2 loss in Kansas City, then saw the Red Bulls come from behind for a 2-1 win against Toronto FC, concluded Sunday with a sound 4-2 defeat by D.C. United at RFK Stadium.
"It was a poor performance on our part. Maybe fatigue played a role, maybe not. We looked like a tired team certainly in the second half. Give D.C. United credit - they played well," said Red Bulls manager Bruce Arena.
Despite being a man up after the 60th minute when United defender Bobby Boswell was red-carded for his second bookable offense of the game, the Red Bulls were helpless as Ben Olsen became the second player within the week to score a hat trick on them. Last Saturday in Kansas City, Eddie Johnson hit for his second hat trick in as many games.
With Olsen - not historically a prolific scorer - happily joking with the media about solving the U.S. national team's scoring woes after notching his first professional hat trick, the Arena-led visitors were not particularly worried about a second loss in a week.
"There's no overreaction either way [if we win or lose]. We know we can always get better, even after a win, that's Bruce's attitude," said captain Claudio Reyna afterwards. "We have enough old heads and senior players around here to not get too down after a loss or too high after a win. It's a long ways to go, but after 10-11 games we feel we've had a good start."
It was a tight first half where Olsen's 15th-minute opener was canceled out by a Dema Kovalenko goal three minutes later. Reyna spent much of the opening 45 minutes with a wad of gauze up one of his nostrils after breaking his nose on the back of Brian Carroll's head.
"Yeah, I broke my nose. I knew right away. I headed the ball back and I hit the back of Brian Carroll's head; I looked up and the next thing I know we were celebrating [the first goal]. I had a headache, was lightheaded, and just sort of felt out of it. I wanted to keep playing because I felt I could, but it definitely affected the way I felt and ran around," Reyna said afterwards with a clearly disfigured and bruised nose.
"We controlled them quite well in the first half, but when they got that goal in the second half, we just broke down mentally and physically. We made some mistakes and they capitalized on it."
United's two Brazilians teamed up for the back-breaking goal just four minutes into the second half, highlighting the tired legs of the visitors. Fred, the Australian A-League MVP a year ago who had failed yet to make a big impact for United this season, danced through the midfield twice within a minute. On the second occasion, he found fellow Brazilian Luciano Emilio behind the Red Bulls' defense on the right, who calmly knocked the ball into the net for a 2-1 lead that seemed to demoralize the visitors.
"Everyone was a little tired and a step slow and that played its part. They pushed the tempo," Reyna said.
In an effort to find some offense, Arena took off winger Dave van den Bergh for teenage sensation Jozy Altidore in the 57th minute.
"I thought Jozy did well. Maybe it was a mistake not starting him. If I could do it again, I would probably have started Jozy ahead of [Clint] Mathis," Arena said.
Just three minutes after entering the game, it seemed like another brilliant move by the former U.S. national team boss when Boswell was sent off after receiving his second yellow of the game for dragging Altidore down in the midfield to prevent a breakaway. It turned out to be Boswell's best play of the day, though, as the Red Bulls withered under the pressure of a 10-man United and the inspired play of Olsen.
"They had 10 men and we should have dominated, but we didn't. It wasn't a good day for us; the effort wasn't there. When you are a man up, you are supposed to attack, not defend more," Altidore said.
Olsen's two second-half goals, both examples of excellent skill - the first a nice cutback and shot inside the penalty area, the second an audacious volley from 25 yards - gave the hosts a 4-1 lead before Angel brought one back for the visitors five minutes from the final whistle.
"Ben had a great performance. I think the players playing around him helped a little bit, but give Ben a lot of credit - he played really well," Arena said of Olsen, whom he coached at the University of Virginia and housed when Olsen entered the league with D.C. United in 1998.
Angel was the lone bright spot for the Red Bulls as he continued his torrid introduction to MLS, scoring in his fifth consecutive game (two games shy of the MLS record) to bring his season total to seven.
"I didn't feel comfortable in general today and I don't think the team felt comfortable today too. We didn't pass the ball as we normally do. We weren't as creative as usual," Angel said.
To a man, though, the Red Bulls weren't making excuses for the loss. They were outplayed by a streaking United squad, and look forward to going home, recovering from their extensive traveling over the past eight days, and exacting a little revenge next week as the Kansas City Wizards visit Giants Stadium for a rematch of last week's 3-2 loss.
"[The most important thing now] is not to lose any confidence. We lost to a good team, even though it was more down to us not playing well. I don't think we have to change too much. It will be good to have a home game - it's been a hard week, and now we get to go home, train, work hard, and really get back to basics," Reyna said.
"We made some simple mistakes around the field, both offensively and defensively. We lost runners at times [defensively] and lost the ball too easily going forward. We bounced back before after a tough loss against Kansas City last week with a win in Toronto, and we have the experience and the quality. We're not a bad team overnight; we still feel that we are a good team and we just have to play better."
Jordan Brown is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
