RSL vs RBNY: What we learned

It’s all about the three points, right? And a shutout at home. We didn’t face a full-powered Red Bulls, but that is, of course, part of the game; we were down a few starters, too. They had to juggle CONCACAF play and RSL capitalized with a win. We looked much better this week than that aberration last Saturday.

We got a bit lucky with that penalty kick. It could just as easily have been placed outside the box, but a video review gave us a PK and Rusnák put it away beautifully.

It wasn’t the sexiest of games, though. Nick Rimando saved us again. RBNY have a strong defense and a knack for clogging up the midfield. With that in mind, we came at this match knowing we would struggle to connect through the midfield. We ran with that and got three points.

Fitness

So here we are again. Three matches into the season and our players are dropping like Diego Rubio after someone breathes on him. Injuries are part of the game, but it seems like we’re heading for ridiculous land again.

Is something wrong somewhere with the fitness regimen? Is it a failure of training staff? Are these individual player fitness problems? Should this actually be down below in the overreactions? I don’t have the answers, but that growing injury list is a problem.

Ortuño doesn’t have ninety minutes in him, yet. He was gassed by the time he came off.

Connections

Again, I don’t think we came into this match to play sexy soccer. We needed to grind out a result and absorb pressure.

With that said, I want some sexy soccer, dammit! We have the players who can string together gorgeous play and that’s what I want to see. I don’t want to be one of those teams that plays ugly bunker-ball to get wins.

Energy

Brooks Lennon as a right back was wonderful. Twitter was full of people calling for him to start there, and he looked excellent in that spot.

Kyle was back tonight. He looked strung out and lost last week, but our captain was all over it tonight. That pirouette? Nice.

Corey Baird looked great on his debut. Rusnák was everywhere. It was a good night for renewed defensive effort; we’ll take it.

Overreactions

Someone call Brighton or Snowbird and let’s borrow some snow-makers so that every game can be a snow game.

I think Ted Unkel is probably going to win his whistle-off after all of the practice he got blowing that thing tonight.