The simple things are the ones that betrayed the New York Red Bulls on Saturday night and cost them points in a match where they should have garnered at least one.
The Red Bulls fell 2-1 to the New England Revolution at Gillette Stadium on Saturday night, with two routine plays gone astray to blame.
"We can accept responsibility for this loss," Red Bulls head coach Bruce Arena said. "We made some big blunders."
Jozy Altidore gave New York a deserved lead in the 30th minute. Altidore and Angel played a one-two that created space for Altidore to shoot inside the Revolution penalty area. Given the chance, Altidore seized it with the outside of his right boot to hand New York the lead.
New England gained traction in the game but struggled to create quality chances. But they managed to carve out a pair of goals primarily from what New York supplied.
Taylor Twellman knotted the scoreline a minute after the break after collecting a Matt Reis punt outside the New York penalty area under no pressure and jaunting into the box to finish past Jon Conway.
"I've seen some of those plays before," Arena said. "Guys need to recognize the situation and react better."
Matters only got worse as the Red Bulls handed the home side all three points with a dreadful mistake from Conway.
Carlos Mendes collected the ball along the right touchline and passed the ball back towards his goalkeeper. Mendes hit the pass firmly from 40 yards away, but Conway misjudged the ball and allowed it to slide into the left hand corner of the net.
"[Mendes] was just passing the ball back to the goalkeeper," Arena said.
Mendes said that he turned once he passed the ball back and didn't see it trickle into the net past Conway.
"Obviously, something went wrong," Mendes said. "I was pretty far out. I'm not sure what happened on the play. It was one of those plays that I didn't really see."
For New York, it was the case of points dropped because of silly mistakes.
"It was certainly part of the story," Arena said of the team's defensive lapses. "We had some chances as well."
The mistakes were routine plays that Arena had pointed out on numerous occasions, but the team did not manage to deal with them adequately on the night.
"These were things we've said 100 times since I've been here," Arena said.
Arena felt that the result was "unfortunate" because of his team's overall performance.
But it was left to Mendes, who will receive blame on the scoresheet, if not for posterity's sake, to note the impact of the final mistake on his side.
"It was a huge letdown," Mendes said about his own goal. "We deserved at least a point."
Kyle McCarthy is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
