New York Red Bulls boss Bruce Arena had said how important it was for his team to win Saturday's first leg of their Eastern Conference Semifinal Series against the New England Revolution at Giants Stadium. After all, the club hasn't won a game in New England in over five years.
So it was hardly a shock that Arena came out with an attack-minded starting 11 in Saturday night's scoreless draw, complementing starting forwards Juan Pablo Angel and Francis Doe with converted striker Jozy Altidore, who provided another attacking threat from his left midfield spot.
But despite controlling possession for most of the game and creating the better of the chances, the trio could not manufacture a goal.
"We tried to throw a couple punches at them with the combination of Angel, Doe, Altidore and [Dane] Richards as well, but the chances that did fall our way, we didn't do well with them," Arena said.
The strategy almost paid off just 16 minutes into the match. With MLS Defender of the Year favorite Michael Parkhurst marking 19-goal man Angel tightly, New York's best chance all night might have been Altidore's near miss over the top from just inside the area.
"Jozy was playing like a left-sided forward for most of the game. He actually likes playing there," said Arena.
"I think our crossing on the night was poor. I don't think Juan did a good job showing for the ball. The forwards needed to do a better job of making themselves available," Arena continued. "We had to get passes into the feet of our forwards and get better crosses in front of the goal tonight and give our forwards a chance to get on the end of something. Obviously there were plenty crosses available tonight."
Despite the coach's assertion that the service to the front-runners wasn't good enough, he refused to blame Claudio Reyna for the lack of quality balls. The captain was back running the Red Bulls' show from his usual central midfield spot after missing the final three contests of the regular season with turf toe.
"I think he did his job tonight," said Arena. Maybe he could have been better with his passes, but Claudio's not an outright attacking midfielder. He's more of a 'tweener -- holding mid/attacking mid. [At least] we got him back on the field. Getting a game tonight will help him next week because he's been out a while."
Angel, on the other hand, felt that the main problem wasn't necessarily a lack of service, but rather that the passes he did receive were consistently in the air, opposed to at his feet.
"We didn't really play much on the floor. For some reason, we were playing long balls most of the time so it was a hard game to create chances."
Altidore was more frustrated that the Revs were in lockdown mode the entire night and were clearly happy to escape the Meadowlands with a tie.
"You could tell from the beginning that they weren't going to go forward at all," he said. "But credit to them, they did what they have to do."
Altidore, who usually plays up top and who scored nine goals from that position during the regular season despite missing considerable time with a calf injury and while playing for the U.S. team at the FIFA U-20 World Cup, agrees that he has no problem lining up out wide.
"I'm buying into the way he wants to play. He wants to be very attack-minded so that's fine with me. Whatever I can do to help this team win," he said.
If history is any indication, winning is going to be a mighty tough task for New York next weekend. The Red Bulls nee MetroStars haven't beaten the Revs in Foxborough since 2002, and blew a two-goal aggregate lead at Gillette Stadium late in the second game of their first-round series two years ago.
Still, don't expect New York to sit back and play for penalty kicks at their house of horrors, insisted Angel.
"I think we played to win today and we have been doing it for the whole year the same way," he said. "We have to play the way we have been playing the whole year."
Doug McIntyre is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
