HARRISON, N.J. – It’s not often that a match sees such highs and lows in such a short span, but the first 15 minutes of the New York Red Bulls' 2-1 loss to the Vancouver Whitecaps at Red Bull Arena more or less decided the match.
From the precipice of an early 1-0 lead to down a man and down a goal all in the matter of minutes, the Red Bulls saw their world turned upside down in what seemed like the blink of an eye. The tone of the match had been set.
“It definitely [set the tone],” Red Bull head coach Jesse Marsch told reporters after the match. “For the game to go from earning to a penalty to a missed penalty to a red card to down a goal, the game was flipped on end.”
The defining sequence of events kicked off as the previously perfect Bradley Wright-Phillips stepped up to take a penalty that Sal Zizzo had earned within five minutes. Up to the challenge, Whitecaps keeper David Ousted parried it with ease in the first of two penalty stops on Wright-Phillips, etching the Englishman’s name in the record books, albeit for a much less prestigious reason than his league-high 27 goals last year.
With his second half penalty miss, Wright-Phillips became the first player in MLS history to miss two spot kicks in the same match.
“I was just trying to get my team back in the game,” Wright-Phillips said. “If I had scored that first penalty, it’s a different game. If I don’t miss these penalties, it’s a different game.
“It’s a tough one to take missing two penalties.”
Looking to bounce back from their wasted opportunity and return to the win column for the first time in over a month, the Red Bulls found their task considerably more difficult as Sacha Kljestan was sent to an early shower in the 11th minute. A physical confrontation between Kljestan and Vancouver defender Kendall Waston saw the former US international swing an elbow at Waston in what captain Dax McCarty categorized as a “rush of blood to the head.”
“I have to take responsibility for what I did,” Kljestan said. “Although I didn’t connect with him, I made a stupid play and an idiotic decision in the heat of the moment and I have to take responsibility for the losing this game for us. If I stay on the field, I think we win the game.”
The downward spiral continued for New York in the 15th minute as Kekuta Manneh quickly made the Red Bulls pay for their mistakes.
“Even with the penalty miss and even with the red card, we can’t give up that first goal,” McCarty stated. “It was just way too easy. It seems like that was their first trip down the field, their first real chance.”
The challenge continues for the Red Bulls, who continue to contend that despite the lack of results, chances are still there for the taking.
“We haven’t been outplayed yet,” winger Mike Grella told MLSsoccer.com. “We just need to find a way to turn these pretty decent performances and [close them out.] No team has outplayed us, I don’t think we’ve played a team that’s been better than us yet.”
Better or not, starts like the one New York endured on Saturday night demonstrate when one bad thing leads to another, the hole can sometimes prove too deep to dig out from.
“Things tend to have a snowball effect,” McCarty added. “That’s certainly [what happened tonight]"
