Between fatigue and injuries, the World Cup break can’t come soon enough for the Red Bulls. They’ve snapped a four-game losing skid with consecutive wins, and last night’s 1-0 victory over Chivas USA sent them into a three-weak rest with momentum and another milestone putting their dismal 2009 in the distant past.
A grueling gantlet of a dozen games in all competitions over 42 days has left them worn out and injury-riddled. But Seth Stammler’s 26-yard golazo and a clean sheet left them 7-5 with 21 points _ a figure that not only vaulted them into a first-place tie atop MLS’ Eastern Conference, but matched all of last year’s sad total.
“It just puts in perspective how bad we were last year. To surpass our win total so early is great for this year, but it’s still embarrassing the kind of year we had last year,” said Stammler. “Fortunately that’s behind us. We’re headed in a different direction now.”
Clearly. They leapfrogged Real Salt Lake and tied Columbus _ 1-0 losers at ten-man Colorado _ for first in the Eastern Conference and second in MLS’ overall standings. And despite playing a defensive midfielder role, Stammler gave them all the offense they needed in front of 18,815 last night.
He pounced on a 27th-minute clearance from Chivas USA defender Dario Delgado, took a single touch and strode into a left-footed blast that was struck low and hard into the bottom left corner of the goal.
“I had a fortunate touch with my right foot to set up my left, made good contact and it found its way through traffic,” said Stammler. “We’re banged up right now, guys are injured. To end the losing streak is great, but to go into the break with two wins, putting is somewhere near the top of the East, it’s a very fortunate time for us to get a break.”
Not shockingly, with the fixture congestion of league matches, friendlies and winning three straight U.S. Open Cup play-in games _ rarely a problem in these parts for the past few years _ exhaustion has set in.
“This game wasn’t pretty; there was a lot of battling and unforced errors, but I can excuse the players. Almost every third day we’ve been playing,” said Backe. “(The timing) is absolutely perfect.”
With 34-year-old defender Mike Petke having played every minute of every league game this year, coach Hans Backe went with Carlos Mendes in central defense alongside Tim Ream. And Mendes played a flawless game, helping them to only their fourth clean sheet of the season, and first since May 1.
But you can add midfielder Sinisa Ubiparipovic to the list of walking wounded, hobbling off in the 12th minute with a strained left hamstring. Dane Richards, Carl Robinson and Mac Kandji had all missed the game, with Salou Ibrahim just returning from his hamstring injury as a 66th-minute sub.
“If you would’ve given me the chance to have those 21 points (at this point) before the start of the season, I’d have taken them,” said captain Juan Pablo Angel. “We still have to be more consistent; there’s still a lot of work to be done, things we have to get better at. But we’re at a pretty decent position going forward.
“We have this break now, and it’s going to be important to get some of the players that’ve been carrying a little bit of injuries or issues back again with the team, to recover them and hopefully regroup again after the break and look to the second part of the season.”
