Between fatigue and injuries, the World Cup break can’t come soon enough for the Red Bulls.
They have snapped a four-game losing skid with consecutive wins, and last night’s 1-0 victory over Chivas USA sent them into a three-week rest with momentum and another milestone putting their dismal 2009 in the distant past.
A grueling stretch of a dozen games in all competitions over 42 days has left them worn out and injury-riddled. But Seth Stammler’s 26-yard goal and shutout defense left them 7-5 with 21 points — a league figure that not only temporarily tied them 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,” Stammler said. “Fortunately that’s behind us. We’re headed in a different direction now.”
Clearly. They leapfrogged Real Salt Lake and sat tied for second in MLS’ overall standings with Eastern Conference-leader Columbus, pending the Crew’s game at Colorado late last night. And Stammler gave them all the offense they’d need last night in front of 18,815 last night.
He pounced on a 27th-minute clearance from 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,” Stammler said. “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.”
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.
“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 coach Hans Backe. “[The timing] is absolutely perfect.”
