Not all wins are created equal. If that wasn’t obvious before, it surely should be after today. Just four games into the MLS campaign, the Red Bulls were winless, with coach Mike Petke and Designated Players Thierry Henry and Tim Cahill all calling today’s tilt vs. Philadelphia a must-have. They got it, and delivered it for Petke, a 2-1 victory over the rival Union.
“We needed to win,’’ said Henry, who put a classy 81st-minute, left-footed volley off a Peguy Luyindula feed into the corner. “The league is pretty long, it doesn’t also mean that if you start badly, you’re going to finish badly or vice-versa. I think the most important thing today was to win, no matter how.
“I thought we played well. I think having said that, we still conceded a goal. I don’t think we did deserve to concede one, but then again we did concede one. We tried to knock on the door so many times to score goals. Dax (McCarty) scored a great goal, great finish. We had a couple of chances to go to 2-1 and we didn’t take them, and finally in the end we scored on a great move.’’
Full highlights of the match can be seen below.
It was a victory that gave Petke his first win as coach, something Cahill said was important. The Red Bulls had actually played well through their first four gamed but were 0-2-2, with a habit of carrying play but conceding late scores. This time, after allowing the Union to equalize, they dug down and found a winner off the foot of Henry.
“Obviously it was very important. I really, truly mean what I said to the guys before the game, and I think I said it to a couple of you guys throughout the week. I’ll even consider this a must win,’’ said Petke. “For me I wanted to really listen to what I’m saying and I mean it: nothing in life is a must except for breathing air, paying taxes, stuff like that.
“To win a soccer game is not a must. These guys have done, for large majorities of previous games, enough to get a result. They earned the result and it just didn’t go our way. It was going to come. Fortunately it came tonight, at home. It was very important leading into Easter tomorrow.’’
It was important enough that Cahill was adamant about playing, despite the long flight back from international duty with Australia. With Fabian Espindola out, and Henry relegated to limited sub duty, Cahill started up front and did the physical thankless job of holding the ball up and sacrificing his body.
“(It meant) a lot. We just needed to win,’’ said Cahill. “I think for us now we can just relax and play football, this is finally the win that we needed and come next week we’re going to have a good week training. We can go into this week relaxed; there’s finally no pressure. We played some great football in the first half, setting the balls up, going long, staying short, mixing it up.
“The game plan is working well; but for the manager, we’re so happy for him because he works at it night and day and takes his work home with him, as we do as well. Out of everyone I think he deserves it. You can tell he’s passionate for it and for us as players we’ll do anything to get the result for him.’’