The New York Red Bulls are traveling down to Florida to take on Orlando City SC on Saturday at 1 p.m.
With the Red Bulls riding high in MLS and Scotiabank Concacaf Champions League play, Orlando comes into the match searching for their first win of the year.
"It is a team that needs points, they are desperate for points, there is a lot of pressure on them after the offseason they had with the player acquisitions to get their team rolling," Head Coach Jesse Marsch said. "We know that it is a tough place to play and they are a quality team with quality players and we have to make sure we go down there and have a clear idea as to what we what the game to look like."
The two teams will meet up for the first time since the offseason swap of Carlos Rivas and Tommy Redding for Sacha Kljestan. Kljestan has played in one match for his new Orlando side, following his two-game suspension stemming from the match against Toronto FC in 2017.
The Lions are 0-2-1 in three matches this year and coming off a bye in Week 4. They have a -3 goal differential after three games.
"They have a good attacking group," Aaron Long said. "I don’t think they have gotten the results they have been looking for yet, so they are going to be desperate and they are going to be home in front of their fans so it is really going to be tough game.”
The Red Bulls come into the match 2-1-0 with a +6 goal differential, the best in MLS, after just three games.
“I think in general we have been hard to score on. We have needed Luis [Robles] to come up with big saves at times, but I think we have been organized," Marsch said. "Whether we have played four or five in the back -- whatever the personnel has been. We want that to really be an emphasis of our team this year and we feel like the more often we can be solid and do everything we can to prevent goals we know that that we have enough players on our team to score plenty. That will continue to be a big emphasis.”
New York will look to continue their strong start on Saturday before turning their attention to C.D. Guadalajara in the Champions League Semifinals.
“You always want to have a good start to the season and before the season actually happens you never know if you are going to have a good start," Daniel Royer said. "You try to find that success early and it was a long and tough preseason as always and it took a while to feel really good about the team and to feel really confident about what we are still building. I think now after some games we have had a good start but we have to keep going.
"It is not worth anything if you lose all the upcoming games now, so it is a good start, but we have to continue to pick up points.”
