Mistakes haunt United in loss to New York
D.C. controls early run of play before allowing four unanswered goals
But then United scored, a 16th minute goal by Jaime Moreno, who has 23 goals in his career against New York. And from there, the game changed for D.C.
"I thought we came out with some energy and we were knocking the ball around well up until the point where we scored," D.C. United coach Tom Soehn said. "We kind of let the foot off the gas a little bit and I thought we started to give them a little life."
That was all the hosts needed, scoring four unanswered goals - including two by Juan Pablo Angel - en route to the most lopsided Red Bulls win in a series that in the past five years has been dominated by United.
"You can't afford to make mistakes, you're going to get punished," said Moreno, who left the match at halftime with a sore back. "We had a good example today. For me, very unprofessional mistakes. We made mistakes, but at this point in the season we can't keep making mistakes like that."
The biggest mistakes, according to Soehn, led to the Red Bulls' two first half goals. First, Fred fouled Dave van den Bergh just outside the box, setting the table for a well-struck free kick by Angel in the 27th minute.
"He didn't give me a good chance to get a jump on it because he hit it low and hard and it curved," Zach Wells said. "It was one of the best free kicks I've seen in a game in this league."
On Mike Magee's goal just before the stroke of halftime, Wells couldn't get enough on Dave van den Bergh's cross and the ball bounced off Marc Burch's head and fell to Magee, who easily deposited the ball into the open net.
"I just didn't get enough on it," Wells said. "I've got to be able to push it over Marc and the guy behind him. It was a scramble all the way across the goal, but I've still got to be able to get it over those two."
On Angel's second goal of the game, the Colombian picked off an attempt by Burch to flick the ball back to Wells and flicked it into the net. Pat Carroll chased after the ball, but couldn't head it away.
"When the ball came up in the air somebody yelled for me to play it back, so I thought maybe (Angel) stopped," Burch said. "That's what I heard so I tried to play it back. I probably should have just flicked it the other way."
Sinisa Ubiparipovic put the finishing touches, easily tapping in a cross from Jorge Rojas three minutes from full time for the Red Bulls, who defeated D.C. for just the third time in the last 21 games in all competitions dating back to 2004.
"They beat us to every ball, and what can I say?" Santino Quaranta said. "They were better."
United squandered a chance to create a bit of separation in the bottom of the Eastern Conference with a win. Instead, there is now a four-way tie for fourth.
"The other team played well," Moreno said. "They were better than us and they deserved to win, but we gave the game away, really. We have to go back to work and make sure that kind of thing doesn't happen again."
With a U.S. Open Cup semifinal looming on Tuesday at RFK, was United looking past a Red Bulls team that was winless in its last five league games?
"I don't know," Soehn said. "This was an important game. It's against a rival and it's a league game. There were no excuses looking past this one."
Dylan Butler is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
