The New York Red Bulls lost 2-1 on the road to Real Salt Lake on Wednesday night.
Gideon Baah scored his second goal of the season on a feed from Sean Davis to give the Red Bulls the lead in the seventh minute.
Baah said of his goal, “It was a set piece goal and we’ve been practicing set similar set pieces for a long time. We just have to fight for through the set piece and good us that we got one. We were trying to hold on for the rest of the game and maybe trying to get one back. But it is a tough result for us. We have to put our heads up and look towards our next game.”
The Red Bulls were riding a five-game unbeaten and shutout streak entering this game.
The shutout streak ended after 472 minutes, the longest in the MLS this season, when Yura Movsisyan scored his sixth of the season in the 65th minute to tie it for Real Salt Lake.
RSL got the game-winner in the 88th minute, as Jordan Allen made it 2-1.
Red Bulls head coach Jesse Marsch said of coming out on the tough end of the result, “I’m really happy with how the guys played and they threw a lot at it. It was a short turnaround and we put a lot of newer guys on the field and I thought a lot of them had good games. So in the end, we give up the goal and it’s a dicey game and we’re trying to hang on. Then that deflection goal is a little bit unlucky. So all in all, I’m really happy with the overall effort and really disappointed for them that we didn’t get the result because I think for them they put a lot in to it and it would have been nice to reward them.”
The Red Bulls are now 7-8-1 on the season and are currently in second place in the Eastern Conference with 22 points after a 1-6-0 start to the season. New York is 6-2-1 over its last eight matches. Philadelphia leads the East with 26 points (7-4-5).
Marsch said of RSL’s Yura Movsisyan picking up steam in the second half, “We had some tired legs on the field and that meant that in some of these defensive moments we had to just hang on. But that being said I thought we contained them for the most part and didn’t give away a lot of clear chances. The cross that comes in we don’t get on it quick enough and we don’t deal with it in the box then the next there is a deflection goal. I though Yura got going a little bit but we know that those guys are dangerous in open space and tried to limit that as much as we could. But I thought for the most part that we did a good job on all four of their attacking players.”
Marsch said of not conceding in 400 plus minutes, “When we looked at the schedule at the beginning of the year, honestly I thought this was going to be one of the toughest games that we had. With the quick travel and everything that we had to face, we wanted to put a team on the field that had some fresh legs and also a team that could go after it a get the result. In a lot of ways we did good with that and a lot of guys stepped up and did well. This also allows us with the rotation to put a team on the field on Saturday that can go after the game. Heat, elevation, short turnaround, travel…it’s not easy man, it’s not easy. In the end I’m really happy with the effort that the group put in.”
The Red Bulls stay on the road for a playoff rematch with the Columbus Crew on Saturday night.
“Stay positive. Keep a positive mentality,” Baah said of the team’s mindset going into Columbus after a tough loss in Salt Lake City. “It wasn’t a bad effort at all. The elevation, the heat with everything it was a brave effort from all of us but unfortunately we lost. We just have to stay positive and keep our heads up and look up to the next game. Hopefully we will put up a great performance like this one and get a result.”