The Red Bulls have come closer together since coach Mike Petke’s dustup with Thierry Henry, communication helping clarity and breeding trust. They snapped a three-game winless skid with consecutive victories, and have found their form because they’re finally concentrating on themselves, not their foes.
In short, just do you.
“The team’s become steadily stronger over the season. There are all sorts of things, times when we’ve had pain and difficult moments. You get strength,’’ sporting director Andy Roxburgh told The Post when asked about their improved chemistry since the incident.
“It’s a choice: You collapse or you get stronger. That’s the case, and the team’s got stronger and stronger. It’s been a few games this season – especially against some of the top sides – where I started to feel this team’s got a character about it. And you’ve seen that playing in that heat in Houston the other day, a character. The technical side is one thing; but character is crucial, and you can see that.’’
As important as character is, clarity is just as vital; and they’ve developed a better sense of how to play since that Aug. 29 practice field altercation. Whether it’s last week’s opponent Houston, or Saturday’s foe Toronto FC, the Red Bulls have stopped reacting to their foes and starting trying to perfect their own gameplan.
“It doesn’t matter if we’re playing Barcelona or Toronto. Same rules apply with how we want to play,’’ Petke said. “We need to approach the game the way we set out to; not anything to do with the other team.’’
It is an epiphany that came after the altercation where Petke and Henry had to be separated. Henry got benched two days later for the derby game against DC, but came on as a reserve in the 2-1 victory that snapped a three-game winless skid, and then last Sunday scored in the Red Bulls’ 4-1 win at Houston.
After that laugher in Texas – a quintessential six-point swing, since the Red Bulls are vying with the Dynamo for Eastern Conference playoff positioning – keeper Luis Robles said they’re on the same page because Petke and the coaching staff have been more specific. Thursday, he expounded on that philosophical shift.
“It’s more specific now. It’s a little bit of our training week, and also the film. But the one thing that was different the last two weeks, as opposed to the rest of the season, is we had this mentality we’re going to customize our game plan to our opponent, and the last two weeks it hasn’t been like that,” Robles said.
“Regardless of who we’re playing, this is way we want to line up, this is how we want to put them under pressure and this is the way we want to counter, since we’ve been able to do that the last two games I think that’s only going to allow us to gain more momentum and confidence going forward.’’
The best teams in MLS – Real Salt Lake, Sporting KC, defending champion LA – dictate the game and enforce their style on their foes. Former coach Juan Carlos Osorio had insisted no MLS team was good enough to do that, and tailored gameplans to respond to opponents. The past three weeks, the Red Bulls have concentrated on themselves, and the results have been impressive.
“I know in the last two weeks – including this week, now the third week – there’s an objective of our gameplan that we’re trying to implement. And if we do that each and every game I feel we’re going to have quite a bit of success,’’ Robles said. “We were able to do that last week, and I think that’s why the result was 4-1. (We concentrate on) how do we want to play, and we did that.’’
Newcomer Bradley Wright-Phillips hasn’t been on the roster for long, but even he can see a change the last few weeks.
“We (did) a lot of work in the week leading up the game on what we had to do to stop them scoring, and how we’re going to score. Everyone got 100 percent into their training sessions and it worked,’’ Wright-Phillips said.
“I think from my first session I can tell you from then (to now) a lot of boys are open to saying anything to each player. Everyone’s talking a lot more. If they don’t like something, they say it. If they want someone to tuck in or track a runner, they say it. That helps on the pitch. We need a lot of honesty. That’s what I’ve been seeing the last few weeks.’’