New England Revolution head coach Steve Nicol went into halftime of his team's 1-1 draw with the New York Red Bulls wondering why his team entered halftime down a goal.
Jozy Altidore thumped his team in front after 30 minutes and a powerful run past two Revs defenders. It was anomalous to a half that saw New England enjoy much of the possession and New York struggle to assert itself in midfield.
"How are they one-nil up," Nicol queried. "It was a fantastic finish, but we come in asking how we're down at halftime. I don't think it started any differently in the second half."
Things changed when Mauricio Castro earned himself a red card after he drew a flimsy foul from Kevin Goldthwaite. The Red Bulls defender loomed over Castro because he felt the Honduran had gone down easily and Castro responded with a well-placed boot to Goldthwaite's groin.
Down a goal and a man, Nicol would have had even more questions for his team had Jeff Larentowicz not converted a free kick to ensure that the visitors would return home with a point.
Adam Cristman drew the foul to set up Larentowicz's curler around an eight-man wall and underneath Chris Leitch's leap.
"They had the wall set up and then they had two or three guys on the end who weren't part of the wall," Larentowicz said. "They put two guys on the end in front of the goalie. I was happy to see that. There was a lot of traffic in front. It was tough for the goalie to see it."
New England had the goal it probably deserved but then had to decide whether to send another attacker on to chase a winner or whether to keep it solid defensively and go home with a draw.
"At that stage, we waited five minutes to see how things would pan out," Nicol said. "We were still thinking about it, but then they opened us up a couple of times, so we decided to hold on."
New York pressed forward in search of that equalizer and the Revs sat back and soaked up the pressure. Expecting to repel a clear-cut chance or two, the Revs saw John Wolyniec direct his effort over the bar from eight yards but Matt Reis didn't have to make a difficult save to keep things on level terms.
Nicol lauded his team's effort on the night, particularly in the second half when the team went down to 10 men.
"It'd be tough to pull anyone out," Nicol said. "Everyone deserves a pat on the back tonight."
Kyle McCarthy is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
