breaking the curse

Image by eschipul via Flickrthe unexpected has happened! for the first time in 8 years, the new york red bulls have advanced through the first round and will play in the conference finals this saturday. are our playoff woes finally over? the next game will tell. but let's take a look at sunday's game.

• we beat the houston dynamo 3-0 (4-1 aggregate) on the road. and the key was tenacity. they came out strong the first 20 minutes, but we weathered the storm. i know that games have momentum swings, but it was nerve-racking watching us have such a slow start. but once we got through the worst, we seemed to wake up - in a big way.
  
• dane richards was the mvp of the match, being involved in all three goals and giving the dyanmo defense fits all day long. the first goal - a slicing pass that he ran onto between two defenders utilized what dane is best at: running really, really fast. the second goal (a pk) was because of a handball off one of his crosses. and the third was again because of him beating the defense d0wn the wing and getting the ball in to a wide open woly.
  
• our defense looked a bit wobbly at times, and cepero gave me a few heart attacks, but he more than made up for it with his stellar play in the net. how many times did cepero save a shot and keep the red bulls in control of the game? impressive game for this rookie. he showed determination and, most of all, he didn't quit on the ball.
  
• osorio actually started the same exact line-up for two games in a row (a first this season) and it paid dividends. the red bulls looked comfortable and worked together as a team in keeping the game firmly in their grasp.
  
• we didn't stop attacking the whole game. i was so glad to see that osorio didn't pull us back into a defensive shell after the second goal. an entire half was too long to play like that, but stranger things have happened with the red bulls. instead, he kept us pushing forward, which resulted in the final goal which slammed the gate shut on the dynamo.
  
• derosario and ching again came up short against sassano and our back line. they had their chances, but they were shut down time and time again and couldn't make an impact on the game.
  

this is a milestone win for the red bulls. as i said in my last post, we have the talent to win games, as long as we play together, and keep the pressure on. this line-up did not give up, nor did we become complacent. the late addition of mendes and kandji put fresh legs on the field without forcing us to stop attacking.

next up is real salt lake, whom we played well against this season - a win and a tie late in the season. with the game less than a week away, do the red bulls stay out on the road and make the short trip to utah instead of flying back and forth across the country? i vote that they stay focused. as crash davis said: "a player on a streak has to respect the streak." let's keep ourselves focused for the next game. but let's also not get too cocky.

go red bulls!

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