Quotes: Red Bulls Show Promise, But More Work Need To Be Done

photo by Matt Kremkau

Sixty seconds in a ninety-minute match. That’s all it took for Sporting Kansas City to ruin the Opening Day festivities at Red Bull Arena on Saturday night. The supporters in attendance saw crisp passing and a stout defense that kept the visitors at bay, despite not having striker Alan Pulido in the starting lineup.

But significantly, the supporters were buoyed by a return to that press that has last seen since Jesse Marsch was in charge. But that was the first 45 minutes. In the second half, things turned for the better and then, shockingly, worse for the home side that evening.

Midfielder Caden Clark, who scored the opening goal, spoke about the match as a whole:

I’ve kept that in the back of my mind, actually, not scoring at home. I really wanted to do that in front of the supporters, and it was great to do that in front of the few that were here tonight who brought the noise. When I scored that [goal] the place was shaking, and you feed off of that and gain some energy from them. Unfortunately, we couldn’t carry that momentum and let them score right away. I think if we don’t let that happen, we could’ve won the game or at least get a draw. It is always a goal of mine to score at home, but just disappointed in the result.

Head Coach Gerhard Struber spoke about the second half and Kansas City’s two goals:

I think we had a sub with Youba Diarra at this moment, and after that, we had three, four, five minutes where we lost momentum. We changed nothing from the system, completely the same. Still, Youba could not play. He was not ready to play further, and, in the end, it was unlucky with the situation with the hand[ball] penalty. It was then three minutes out of order, especially with our positions in the box, against the ball, and I think this was the big punch for us in the end.  

The good thing is I can see a team that never gave up, and we created some chances, some moments for us, and in the end, a disappointing game with this result.

On getting new players like Fabio, integrated:

Yeah, I was happy with Fabio’s working ability. He works so hard, and he pressed the whole time. When he played, I think he was very reliable, and with his pressing, we created chances. I think he must work more on his personal output, he has an excellent chance in the second half and in the end with Fabio, very happy with his performance, his attitude on this day, this was a good first step. We need him to score in the end, but also it’s very important that he works for the whole team, and he gives us a very good feeling.

Caden Clark on whether needs to change in the Red Bulls’ attack:

I think it could’ve been tonight [in terms of jelling as an attacking unit]. I don’t think it is a matter of time at all. We all know what we are capable of and I think we have a really talented group and team. As you could see, our press was there tonight with SKC kicking the ball out-of-bounds a handful of times just on our simple press. We won the ball a bunch of times as well off our press. I think offensively it was there tonight, just those two-three minutes of lack of focus cost us and lost three points tonight.

While the first test of the 2019 campaign was disappointing, there is still hope that this team will find its way to win matches as the season moves along. Integrating new players in a system is challenging to say the least. With Patrik Kilmala and Frankie Amaya set to make their debut, the pieces that Head of Sport Kevin Thelwell and coach Struber collected during the off-season are slowly coming together. 

However, there’s no time for licking the wounds of their first loss as the team travels to the west coast to face an LA Galaxy looking to impress their home fans in a nationally televised match next week.