HARRISON, N.J. – From the open whistle, it was immediately clear that something just was not right.
The New York Red Bulls suffered their first home defeat in 11 matches on Sunday afternoon, falling 3-1 to the Columbus Crew. But what was worse than the loss was the manner in which it came, as New York looked a shell of their recent selves from the onset.
Passes flew off target at a high frequency. Energy was missing. Sharpness in decision-making was nearly nonexistent.
It all allowed the Crew to do something that few other clubs have done: head into Red Bull Arena and take the game to Mike Petke’s side en route to a 2-0 lead that would never be relinquished.
“Not many teams – if any – come in and boss us around like that and they certainly did,” said Petke, whose playoff-bound Red Bulls are now in fifth place in the East. “Bad day at the office combined with self-inflicted scenarios for us. How many times in the first half did we just give the ball to them? Countless.
“There’s no excuses from us today. The first half was embarrassing.”
One theory that was floated around postgame to explain the Red Bulls’ drop-off in performance after losing just once in their last seven matches was that the club had let up a bit after securing a postseason berth last weekend. Petke entertained the notion and said it was possible, but not everyone in New York’s locker room agreed – not with playoff positioning still to play for.
The sentiment that did seem unanimous, however, was that the Red Bulls were clearly the inferior team once the ball got rolling due to a number of unforced miscues.
“It looked like we were sleeping at the start of the game,” said center back Jamison Olave. “In the beginning, we gave away three, four, maybe eight, bad passes. We never responded well to that. We lacked a response, and that’s why things played out like that.”
Normally, a loss like this could just be chalked up to being an outlier, the type of bad night at the office that happens to even the most successful clubs throughout the course of a season.
But New York are all too familiar with these types of underwhelming performances, having seen them serve as part of a recurring theme for much of the year before appearing to have finally done away with them during their recent strong run of form.
That is what makes the resurfacing of these issues all the more concerning, especially with the start of the playoffs being a little more than a week away.
“We didn’t seem to have the same sort of effort [like] we did in other games,” said goalkeeper Luis Robles. “Sure, there’s going to be moments where the quality isn’t there, but the effort usually can make up for it.
“When both of them are missing for huge stretches of a game, it’s very difficult to beat a good team like Columbus.”
Franco Panizo covers the New York Red Bulls for MLSsoccer.com. He can be reached by email at Franco8813@gmail.com.
