As the New York Red Bulls continue to prepare for Leg 2 against Santos Laguna, the club remain upbeat and confident on being able to pull the upset and advance to the Scotiabank Concacaf Champions League Semifinals.
“We know it’s a tough task, and that was a talking point today,” Head Coach Chris Armas said. “Still, today, the way the guys showed up, it was a continuation of these last few days. Good energy, a lot of confidence.”
Sean Davis spoke with reporters after training and talked about the team needing to be more aggressive from the opening whistle and players having the right mentality to get the result they need.
“I think we all have a clear understanding of what we need to do to advance,” Davis said. “We want to score early, we want to come out aggressive and obviously keep a clean sheet to give us the best chance. It's going to come down to the players having the right mentality and being aggressive right from the start.”
In order to advance, the Red Bulls will need to do a better job at converting on the chances that they create, which they weren’t able to do in Leg 1 of the series.
“Executing when you get your chances, because there’s not a ton all the time in these tight series each way,” Armas said.
Regardless of the lack of execution, Armas is optimistic that those chances this time around will be converted.
“On the night, Danny got himself in a good spot, Alex Muyl got himself in a couple good spots, Kaku gets a chance, Derrick gets a chance,” Armas said. “Those guys are getting chances, and it'll add up, it will.”
One thing that will help will be continuing to find ways to get Bradley Wright-Phillips opportunities to score, which earlier in the week he said he owed the team a goal based on the chances he had in Leg 1, but Davis said the scoring shouldn’t solely fall on him.
“Brad had good looks, but other players did as well, so it's never going to be just one guy with our team,” Davis said. “We all have to take responsibility, especially in big moments, in big competitions, it’s a team effort and never falls on just one guy.”
