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Red Bulls Fail to Keep Up in the 2nd Half

New York Red Bulls, Professional, Soccer

May 5, 2024

It was a historic night at Chase Stadium for Inter Miami CF but a night to forget for the New York Red Bulls. A second-half takeover awarded Miami a 6-2 victory over the visitors from Harrison, NJ.

Miami’s dominant performance came at the hands of their star-studded forwards, Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi. The duo combined for four goals while the eight-time Ballon D’or winner, Messi, had five assists, breaking the MLS record for most assists in a single match.

New York controlled the first half well, holding most of the possession and getting a majority of the shots on the net. The Red Bulls took the lead first in the 30th minute after Dante Vanzeir netted the rebound from Wiki Carmona’s shot, which hit the post. The Belgian recorded his first goal of the season and also did well against Miami last time, assisting on all 4 goals in their 4-0 victory.

The second half was all Miami. It was a complete performance, both offensively and defensively. The home squad came out firing with an equalizing goal scored by Matias Rojas in the 48th minute. Miami took the lead just two minutes later after a turnover by Carmona set up Messi for a perfect opportunity to make it 2-1. Rojas and Messi linked up again for their third goal in the 62nd minute as New York’s hopes of even a tie slipped away.

Head coach Sandro Schwarz spoke about the second half.

“Yeah, we tried to change our structure to use only one 6 position and to that, we take a little bit more risk in our behavior to create these chances after three one,” Schwarz said. “Then we open the space, and this is the biggest problem against this quality when you have open space against Lionel Messi.

Then they have these moments after the transition when we are losing the ball especially before we concede the third goal. We had a good moment in the box of the opponent, but we didn't finish this attacking situation that was a great chance for us we lost the ball and then they had a moment in that transition and that was the main difference today.”

Luis Suarez scored a hat trick with goals coming in the 69th, 75th, and 81st minute to further add salt to the Red Bulls’ wound. Suarez’s goal total on the season now is ten in just 11 games played while Messi tallied his 11th in just eight games.
Team captain Emil Forsberg earned the Red Bulls a consolation goal in added time of the 90th minute after a penalty kick was awarded when John Tolkin was fouled in the box. New York seemed to fall asleep in the second half and didn’t wake up until it was too late.

“I think we're always coming in confident in the games,” Forsberg said. “We're playing good, we're doing what we're saying we're going to do and we're, I think we were the better team the first half. I mean, of course, they have Messi, Suarez, and Busquets, they have so much individual quality so a goal can happen any minute, but we can't allow ourselves to concede six goals in I don't know how much time it was.

We have to demand more from each other. But it's experience, it's development and we need to do better on Saturday for sure. I mean, we can't accept this and we will have a good training week and hopefully come back stronger.”

The Red Bulls continue to struggle at this point in the season. In their last five matches, their record is 1-1-3. All three draws in that time were matches that could have been won but fell short of achieving. New York now falls to fourth in the Eastern Conference standings.

While the Red Bulls have played well a few months into the season, they have shown signs of slowing down and having areas that need to be improved. Simple mistakes have cost them leads that turned wins into ties, and they have not been able to keep up with some of the better teams in the league. A 3-0 loss to Columbus and now a 6-2 loss to Miami show the club still has work to do if they want to keep up with the top of the table all season long.

New York will quickly move on from the loss and put their focus on their next match against the New England Revolution. The Red Bulls will travel back to Red Bull Arena in the hope of finally earning a win in over a month. The match will be on Saturday, May 11, at 7:30 pm.