The New York Red Bulls (10-10-6) earned a remarkable result on Sunday night against Real Salt Lake (9-12-4), winning the contest 2-1. An action-packed final 20-plus minutes places New York at 36 points and closer to regaining a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
The Red Bulls returned to regular competition Sunday, hoping to end their two-game league match losing skid vs a Salt Lake club pushing for a playoff spot. It had been a long time since Salt Lake traveled to the Garden State, last playing the Red Bulls away in 2019. The Red Bulls came away with a 4-0 victory six years ago, and they believed they could earn a similar result on Sunday.
The first three minutes for New York, however, proved to be chaotic and disappointing. In the third minute, a beautiful pass from Salt Lake’s midfielder Diego Luna created a terrific goal-scoring opportunity for his squad. The ball found forward William Agada, who then set up forward Zavier Gozo for the first goal of the match to make it 1-0.
Oddly enough, Salt Lake struggled to generate opportunities in their attacking-third the rest of the half. For the Red Bulls, they had chance after chance against a defensive-heavy Salt Lake squad and still could not score on any of their 12 shots. But with nearly 55 percent of possession and attacking heavily, something had to give eventually for New York.
One of the reasons why the Red Bulls struggled with some of their chances early on and throughout the match had to do with the pitch quality. Red Bulls manager Sandro Schwarz was furious with the pitch conditions post-match.
“When we have a home game it has to be a big advantage for us,” Schwarz told the press Sunday. “But it’s not possible to play on this pitch. When we want to be successful, very professional, then we need a hundred percent a better pitch for the opponent, for us, for everything. This was not good today.”
After multiple missed opportunities, the Red Bulls broke through in the 52nd minute. The star duo of forward Eric Choupo-Moting and captain Emil Forsberg contributed per usual to New York’s first goal of the match. Forsberg threaded a pass towards Choupo-Moting, who netted his 14th goal of the regular season to make it one all.
For Forsberg, it was another match with a goal contribution as he entered Sunday with six goal contributions in his previous six Major League Soccer (MLS) matches.
Things got interesting around the 80th minute when Choupo-Moting was taken down inside the penalty area and received no penalty shot. Video review would then be used and a penalty would be awarded to Choupo-Moting a few minutes later. A plot-twist would occur though as Choupo-Moting missed his first penalty kick of the season and the scoreline remained 1-1 after the 84th minute.
Things then got feisty between both squads as after receiving a yellow card in the 82nd minute, Luna was shown a second yellow three minutes later. By taking down New York defender Kyle Duncan, Luna was disqualified on the second yellow (red) card. However, Duncan would then be shown a red card on the same incident following video review moments later, leaving both sides with ten men.
In a way, the match had to end on an exciting note as in the 99th minute, Choupo-Moting would get another shot to capitalize. After being given another penalty kick following video review, Choupo-Moting redeemed himself and earned a brace on his second penalty attempt of the match.
The victory over Salt Lake gave New York their ninth MLS home win this season, their most since 2019. For Choupo-Moting, he tied legend Thierry Henry for ninth place in MLS goals scored in a season for the club according to Red Bulls Communications.
After earning three huge points, the Red Bulls travel to Philadelphia Wednesday to play their rescheduled U.S. Open Cup quarterfinal match against the Union. Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m. on Paramount+.
