Back and forth battle; in a stadium that I’ll be glad to see not used
for football; as Real Salt lake’s playoff hopes die and New York keep theirs
alive; 2-2-
Giants Stadium is a terrible
place to play football; the fake pitch, the lack of appropriate space around
the pitch and the football lines just a nuisance; the new Red Bulls home ground
can’t come soon enough. That didn’t stop
a good night time crowd, vocal and excited; expectant and drumming.
Arena; still looking for the best
way to utilize all the talent at his disposal; went with Waterreus in goal;
Stammler and Parke at centre back, van den Burgh on the left and Leitch on the
right; midfield is Reyna; pulling the strings; Richards; getting forward and
Vide and Kovalenko shoring things up; Liberian Doe and Colombian Angel are the
forwards.
A very different Real side from
the one that narrowly lost to Dallas; Kreis is making some progress in
personnel and tactic; Rimando keeps goal behind Forko, Mantilla, Pope; he’ll be
asked to do a job on Angel; and Wingert; Beckerman will sit in the middle with
Williams and Talley looking more forward; a three man front line of Brown, Movsisyan
and Eskandarian will rotate the point man.
Route one football almost hands New York a dream start,
Angel flicks a long ball on for Doe, Rimando smothers the opportunity.
New York are pushing for the
early goal, Angel is battling with Pope for space and opportunity and Doe is
pulling the Real defence around to create space for Reyna to drop balls
into. Real focus on keeping a clean
sheet and break when they can but a first twenty minutes see no shots from the Utah outfit. At the other end, Angel keeps attacking but
his lack of real quality shows with too many offisides and some poor finishing
and decision making, Rimando is equal to anything else; Richards; with his
forward forays provides a real thorn in the Salt Lake side, plenty of crosses
go in the area but none a met with enough conviction and when the chance does
come he runs into the same space as Doe and sees the ball drop into space at
the back post; he is a Rookie though.
With their first effort on goal
Real are successful; Wingert puts the ball in after being played through by
Williams; Brown is alert at the back post and heads past Waterreus; the cross
and finish were good but the defending and goalkeeping were very poor.
New York keep up their attacks and are
denied twice at the death by fine Rimando saves, Real get forward sporadically
with little success or quality.
Kreis wants more possession from
his players and needs them to use the ball better. Arena wants to get back into the game and
brings on Mathis for Vide; who had a good first half.
The equalizer is all about speed
and class; van den Burgh plays the ball forward up the left flank, Angel flicks
the ball on and Doe absolutely skins Mantilla, turning the Argentinean inside
out; twice!; before firing past Rimando inside the far post. The Liberian scored a great goal, definitely
a candidate for goal of the season.
Stammler; coming up from the
back; works a shooting opportunity with Doe but fires wide; Reyna comes off
with an injury; Espindola replaces Brown; Altidore comes on for Doe, the
changes favour Real, Espindola causing all sorts of havoc down the right and
Altidore not as sharp or mobile as Doe.
The Argentinean works well on the
left off a pass from Eskandarian, he pulls the ball back and Beckerman; playing
further forward; calmly slots the ball past Waterreus.
Mathis has a chance but the
bounce from the fake grass isn’t kind to the substitute and Mantilla clears off
the line, the Argentinean defender comes good moments later when Angel head goal
wards from a Mathis cross.
Van den Burgh, crossing well all
night; delivers another good ball into the area; Real fluff and Talley fouls
Mathis for a penalty kick; Angel buries the spot kick for his seventeenth of
the season; a new New York record.
Half chances fall at either end,
Espindola coming close and Altidore scuffing a good opportunity wide. Neither side can find the final ball or shot
to grab a winner and the entertaining game ends in a draw.
Arena has still to find the
formula in New York,
Altidore for Doe was a poor substitution, the Liberian was always more
dangerous than the American. Still looking
at a play off spot they will need to step up on their defence if they want play
off success
Real Salt Lake maybe out of the play offs with
this draw but they are improving all the time; still lightweight in attack they
are playing a nice brand of football under Kreis.
