Photo credit: Matthew Kremkau
The New York Red Bulls gave their most convincing performance of this young season, recording a massive away win over the Columbus Crew by the score of 4-1. Yes, the Red Bulls dared to be massive on the road, with Thierry Henry and Kenny Cooper scoring a brace apiece and rookie goalkeeper Ryan Meara putting in a near perfect, Man Of The Match (in my opinion) performance.
As last week, this game was a tale of two halves. The first half was all Red Bulls, with the visitors mauling the home side to the tune of three goals, two of them coming in the first 13 minutes. The second half was another story, with some panic defending by a Red Bulls defense that gave The Crew a flurry of chances. These culminated with an 88th minute Chad Marshall goal, off a Columbus corner kick (yet another set piece goal given up by the Red Bulls). That, however, was as close as the Crew would get. About a minute after Marshall's goal, Joel Lindpere (who found himself on the bench at the start of this one) put in a beautiful cross from the left that Thierry Henry angrily smashed into the back of the net.
Photo credit: ISNOnline
After the game, Columbus defender Chad Marshall summed up the Red Bulls performance perfectly when he said NY "could do whatever they wanted". I will agree with him in that NY could do no wrong through the first 60 minutes of the game. If they had played the last 30 minutes with the same intensity, the pounding would have been even more severe.
A fantastic showing by the boys and girls of the South Ward, who Dared To Be Massive in Columbus. Oh, to have been there to see the hammer of Thor come down on the hapless Crew. You're a lucky lot! Please click here for a great facebook photo album of this one from ISN Soccer. You can click here for a nice set from the official site.
Some final thoughts on this Easter Sunday: While Thierry Henry and Kenny Cooper now lead MLS with 7 and 6 goals respectively, I truly believe that our footballing Messiah is not yet here. When he's finally signed this Summer, as the Backe/Soler braintrust have promised, I truly believe that, with this much firepower at his disposal, he'll lead us out of the wildersness and into the promised land of an MLS Cup victory.
That's all for now. Happy Easter/Passover and I hope to see you all @The Cathedral of Football, Red Bull Arena (built by Makita) next Saturday. Viper Out!
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