The New York Red Bulls were the latest victim of another lower-level side trying to prove their worth against an MLS team in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup.
The Red Bulls were outplayed and soundly beaten by Crystal Palace USA 2-0 on Tuesday night at Lawrence E. Knight Stadium, despite having a man advantage for the last 56 minutes of the match.
By that time, they were down a goal and chasing the game, fielding a young, inexperienced team perhaps incapable of coming back even against this level of competition.
"We always knew they would be fired up to a play an MLS team," said Red Bulls coach Juan Carlos Osorio. "I thought we were good enough to play with some of the young players, unfortunately it didn't payoff tonight. The starting lineup was basically all of the guys that have not been playing. I personally thought this was the right time to rest a few of our key players and unfortunately we paid the price for it."
Crystal Palace became the third USL-2 team in the last two years to down MLS opposition in the U.S. Open Cup. They will now play the New England Revolution next week in New Britain, Conn.
"They were amped for it," said defender Kevin Goldthwaite, who wore the captain armband. "The young guys who don't play that much got some minutes tonight, but I still think that we should come out and put in a better performance than we did tonight."
The physical match had six yellow cards and two ejections. Red Bulls forward Mike Magee was shown a red card for dissent in the 90th minute and immediately and willingly raced off the field.
Regardless, the unimaginative Red Bulls did very little to dent the mass of Crystal Palace players behind the ball after they secured the lead in the 18th minute on a goal by Andrew Marshall.
"I think for the first 15 minutes, up to the goal, we matched their effort but after that it was a mountain to climb," Osorio said. "I think by what happened today, it proved to be too much of a game for them (his young players) ... we lacked a little bit of creativity."
Osorio often plays a game in training he said, where six attackers try to score against eight or nine players. His team had that situation today but without his top players, his younger team offered very little to the enthusiastic and energetic home side.
"Today, seven of us trying to score against eight of them, it was very difficult," said Osorio. "We always knew it would be hard if they took the lead and that is exactly what happened. Credit to Crystal Palace, they put numbers back and counterattacked with two quick players and they got the second goal like that."
"They executed their game plan very well," added Goldthwaite. "They got a goal and sat back; got the red card and sat back and in the second as we were going forward they looked to spring somebody on the counter attack and it ended up working out."
Osorio made a calculated decision to leave several first team players back in New York to rest because of need. He rolled the dice on the illusion that an MLS reserve team, in essence what he sent out on the field, could defeat a motivated, hungry team from a lesser league.
"Definitely, they need to rest and we decided this is the right time to do it and I will have to stand up for that," said a forthright Osorio.
The Red Bulls arrived at home late Sunday night after drawing with Chivas USA in Los Angeles, trained on Monday, then turned around and got on a bus for the 4-hour drive to a high school just a few miles away from the United States Naval Academy.
"Some guys might have been a little bit fatigued but that can't be an excuse for a performance like that," Goldthwaite said.
Chris Snear is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
