Sports

Red Bulls blanked

MONTREAL — Marco Di Vaio scored in the 14th minute and the Impact beat the Red Bulls 1-0 yesterday to improve to 4-0.

The Red Bulls (0-2-2) finished the match short a man after defender Brandon Barklage was sent off for taking down Patrice Bernier at the edge of the penalty area in the 74th minute.

The Red Bulls had a slight edge in ball possession, but the Impact dominated the scoring chances and wasted a handful of opportunities to pad the lead.

“This really stung,” Red Bulls goalkeeper Luis Robles said. “I felt like we did a lot of things good, but sometimes that’s not good enough. We all know it’s a long season, but we don’t want to be looking 10 or 15 games in and thinking ‘OK, there’s more of the season left.’ It doesn’t work that way.

“We wanted to bring the game to Montreal. We were doing that, but also give them credit. Montreal is very organized and compact. There’s a reason they’re 4-0.”

Thierry Henry wasn’t available for the Red Bulls because of a knee injury.

The Red Bulls’ new signing from Paris St. Germain, Peguy Luyindula, played his first game at forward and had his side’s best chance of the first half.

A crowd of 26,259 saw the Impact score first for a fourth straight game in the 14th when goalkeeper Troy Perkins sent a long ball up the middle that was headed down to Bernier. The playmaker slipped a pass through the defense to Di Vaio, who beat Robles to the left side for his second goal of the season.

Heath Pearce’s attempt off Juninho’s free kick was deflected by Perkins to the top of the box, where Luyindula chipped it over the bar in the 38th minute. And Luyindula was in front again in the second, but only got a touch on a feed from the right side and was stopped by Perkins.