It was a heart-breaking loss for the Red Bulls in Seattle on Sunday night, with the team blowing a one-goal lead and losing the match in second-half stoppage time. You would think such a loss would have the team down, perhaps even sluggish at training this week.
Not so.
“We had a meeting before training and it was really upbeat for the manager,” midfielder Mike Grella said. “We feel that we played the way we wanted to play. It’s just things are not going our way in both boxes, but the mood around this place is fantastic. We still feel like a team, we still feel like we have so much to perfect and learn. It’s really positive and we can’t wait for the next challenge to put things right. It’s such a positive place and a positive group.”
That next challenge will come quickly. Having made a cross-country flight home and not returning to training until Tuesday, the Red Bulls are about to travel again, this time to Houston for a game against the Dynamo Friday night at BBVA Compass Stadium.
“It’s going to be really hot,” Grella said. “It’s our second away trip in a row. Seattle was a long one. Houston’s not that close, so just managing our bodies and making sure we execute all the things we want to execute are the most important things. Houston’s a tough team, all the teams are tough in this league, and we’ll just have to be prepared for the match every way we can physically and mentally.”
It will be another patched-together back line for the Red Bulls against the Dynamo. A week after getting Damien Perrinelle back from a hamstring injury, the central defender was cautioned against the Sounders and will miss the Dynamo match due to yellow-card accumulation. With Ronald Zubar (hamstring) still out, it appears Roy Miller will move inside again.
Miller played in central defense against the Philadelphia Union and did not play well, but he’ll again be paired with Karl Ouimette, with Chris Duvall and Kemar Lawrence on the outside. After the match, Ouimette (Canada), Miller (Costa Rica) and Lawrence (Jamaica) will join their respective national teams for matches. The Red Bulls could also lose defender Andrew Jean-Baptiste, who is being considered for the Haiti roster.
Unfortunately for the Red Bulls, Ouimette, Miller and Lawrence will miss the fourth round of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup against the NASL’s Atlanta Silverbacks June 16 at Red Bull Arena, although Jean-Baptiste and Zubar might be able to play in the Open Cup match.
Confusing? Maybe, but it’s something Red Bulls coach Jesse Marsch and sporting director Ali Curtis have been contemplating for weeks. No player has yet to draw interest for the United States team for the CONCACAF Gold Cup in July, although midfielders Sacha Kljestan and Dax McCarty and goalkeeper Luis Robles deserve a look.
That means Marsch will look to his bench, and one of the players that intrigues him is 18-year-old forward Anatole Abang.
“He has made a lot of progress around here. We see all his good qualities,” Marsch said. “He’s making it hard for me as a coach to not put him on the field, but it’s just trying to look at different games and what they’re like and then figure out how to factor him in.
“We’ve talked a little bit about playing him a little bit higher and dropping Bradley (Wright-Phillips) a little bit deeper, or playing the two of them with Bradley coming underneath. He’s continuing to impress in training every day and in turn will make it hard for us as coaches not to play him. He’s done well.”
With FIFA in the news, Marsch watched as Prince Ali bin Hussein lost the FIFA presidential election to incumbent Sepp Blatter, though Blatter resigned a few days later. The Prince and Marsch knew each other as Princeton undergraduates, and with Blatter out of the picture, Prince Ali could be back in the race for the top spot.
“Prince Ali has as always been a really smart guy and a bright guy,” Marsch said. “When I knew him at Princeton he was visible on campus, but very integrated in campus in life being a Princetonian. He was Jordanian but also was very Cosmopolitan. He spoke very good English. He was very smart guy, had a lot of experiences, a lot of international experiences.
“If you know Jordanians they are a very progressive people and I’ve been to Jordan and I’ve seen it first hand, and I think Prince Ali is a good representative of what his people are like. I think he’d be a great candidate. He was always into football when we were at Princeton. He would wear jerseys occasionally, international jerseys like Real Madrid, and I think he’s represented himself pretty well in the campaign, as a smart guy, as a guy who cares about the right things, as a guy who won’t be influenced.
“He has a pretty good track record for being an honest, good, smart person, even as a royal coming from Jordan, so he’s a real guy, and I think he’d be a steady hand to have at the top of FIFA.”
