Saturday night saw the New York Red Bulls prove to doubters that they are the real deal, by destroying an Eastern Conference rival Toronto FC, and extending their unbeaten run to six games.
New York opened the scoring at Red Bull Arena in the 27th minute, when Mike Grella provided a beautiful ball to Bradley Wright-Phillips, who buried it past TFC’s goalkeeper, Joe Bendik. It would be the only goal of the first half, and ultimately it would be enough for the Red Bulls to claim all three points.
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Anthony Wallace cemented the victory for the home side in the 67th minute, when the American scored just his second goal of the season. Gonzalo Veron would also find the back of the net, scoring his first ever Major League Soccer goal, just before full time.
“I think with each and every performance, we continue to grow in confidence-we’re growing in cohesion as well,” said New York goalkeeper Luis Robles following the match. “Our biggest strength we said from the beginning is our locker room. Guys believe in each other, guys are willing to work for each other…from the very beginning to the very end, we’re working hard for each other.”
With the win, the Red Bulls move to within just five points of D.C. United atop the Eastern Conference standings, with three less games played. Currently sitting in second, they are five points ahead of the Columbus Crew and also have a game in hand on them as well.
Toronto on the other hand, will not be happy with Saturday’s performance. However, head coach Greg Vanney did his best to look on the bright side of things following the loss.
“I thought we got off to a good start, I thought we were competitive, I thought we were here to play,” Vanney told the press after the match. “There was a stretch in the middle of the game where we got caught in between players, where we weren’t making it clear who was stepping to who and dealing with, particularly, with their deep midfielders and they were swinging the ball from side to side and we end up getting caught in between some things and then they got the goal and as the game progressed we looked to sort that out in the second half and they pick up a second goal which I thought we should’ve with that and in the end we’re chasing the game and the third goal comes because we’re trying to extend ourselves a little bit to get ourselves back into the game.”
American international, Herculez Gomez, made his return to MLS after six seasons in Mexico, when he entered the match in the 71st minute. Despite only played 19 minutes, he was able to provide his team with quite a bit of energy off the bench and forced Robles to make a fantastic save in the 74th minute.
“Any time you come into the game you want to have an impact and to take one late like that hurt because I felt for a good 10-15 minutes we were taking it to them,” said Gomez. “Tides were shifting, tides were turning, so frustrating, but it’s something I need to build on. I’m nowhere near 90 minutes fit.”
Toronto will now look to get back to winning ways against Orlando City at BMO Field next Saturday afternoon. The Reds have 31 points from 23 matches, sitting in fifth spot.