FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – The New York Red Bulls entered their Friday night tilt in New England without their two starters on central defense – Gideon Baah and Ronald Zubar.
Sliding over from left back, Kemar Lawrence was holding up well in filling in at center back, but "a pop" in his knee -- as Red Bulls head coach Jesse Marsch described it after the game -- sent him down to the Gillette Stadium turf in the 55th minute.
The magnitude of the injury was much more than the loss of yet another Red Bulls defender this season, however, as in the process of Lawrence going down the Revolution continued play, much to the chagrin of the visitors, and finished their run with the game’s lone goal in a 1-0 win for New England.
“It’s shameful, for me. The game’s supposed to have honor and they can claim they didn’t see him. They can claim that they weren’t sure he was hurt,” said Marsch after the game in response to the Revs not conceding the ball out of bounds in the face of a Red Bulls player down.
“It was clear as day that he was down on the ground and not just one player saw him, but their whole team saw him. So, that part for me is shameful.”
While the Revolution were doing their best to play to the whistle, the fact that one was not blown in the process was also a point of contention for New York.
“The other part is that the referee has such a huge impact on this game...” said Marsch. “For me, he can blow the whistle when a guy’s down like that.”
“That’s the result, on that one play,” Red Bulls 'keeper Luis Robles added. “That was the only goal. One-zero. I guess there’s unwritten rules about when a player goes down, but when they saw that he clearly went down, when the referee is looking at him and evaluating the situation…if he feels like the guy is significantly injured than he has to blow the whistle.”
Lawrence immediately exited the game and was replaced by Chris Duvall. After the match, referee Mark Geiger explained that, “At the time, the injury did not appear serious. Therefore, play was allowed to continue.”
Though that sequence of events proved to be the turning point on the evening for the Red Bulls, there was another point of contention that added to the night’s frustrations.
In the 61st minute Felipe and Kelyn Rowe were converging on a loose ball when it was determined that the Red Bulls midfielder had gone in too hard, so Geiger flashed red, putting New York down a man for the remainder of the match.
“I have seen the play and it looked to me, and I’m a little biased but it looked to me that Felipe got the ball first,” said Robles. “Could it have been a foul? Sure. Could it have been yellow?" He shrugged his shoulders. "Red? That’s tough.”
“Our team played great,” said Marsch. “Our team had fight. Our team stuck together, had confidence, even a man down played well and were the better team...we’re unlucky not to walk out of here with something.”
