With the Red Bulls already facing a mini-crisis at the heart of their defense, coach Mike Petke is trying to figure out who he will play at centerback Sunday at Chicago, and was hoping none of his three standouts — Thierry Henry, Bradley Wright-Phillips and Tim Cahill — didn’t get banged up or worn out in Wednesday’s MLS All-Star game in Portland, Ore.
“I’m more concerned with the travel, playing on turf and the minutes they’re going to play,’’ Petke said. “I’m not concerned with injury, because those things could happen any game. But definitely I hope they play 45 minutes at the most, they’re well-rested and ready to go for the more important game, which is Sunday.’’
As it turned out, none of the three was injured, and Wright-Phillips even scored the first MLS goal in a 2-1 victory over Bayern Munich at Providence Park. But Petke already will be without centerbacks Jamison Olave and Matt Miazga Sunday at Chicago. The last thing he needs is to lose Henry, the MLS assist leader; Wright-Phillips, the league scoring leader; or World Cup midfielder Cahill.
All played on Saturday, when the Red Bulls expended a lot of energy in a 10-man, 2-1 come-from-behind win over New England. Then the three flew 2,400 miles to play in Wednesday’s glorified exhibition, on artificial turf no less, a surface Henry religiously avoids.
“When I spoke to Caleb [Porter, the All-Star coach] weeks ago upon their selection, he said he’d play them no more than 45 [minutes],’’ Petke said. Henry played 48 minutes; the other two played 45 each.
“I know he’s a man of his word. He’ll stick to it. But obviously anything can happen. Who knows what could happen? Some of the guys could get injured. They might not have any subs left. Any crazy thing could happen.’’
The Red Bulls can ill afford for anything crazy to happen to any of that trio, having already lost to suspension Miazga, for his red-card tackle Saturday, and Olave for grabbing Olmes Garcia’s genitals (yes, you read that right) in the July 30 tie at Real Salt Lake.
Veteran Ibrahim Sekagya is almost assured of starting at one centerback spot. It’s the other spot that’s the problem. Sporting director Andy Roxburgh confirmed the team was standing pat at Wednesday’s close of the MLS International Transfer Deadline, and recently signed Damien Perrinelle still isn’t cleared to play, awaiting his ITC and P-1 visa.
That leaves Armando, who served a two-game suspension for a dangerous play on July 4 in Houston, and no other natural centerbacks on the roster.
“We have Armando Lozano who has experience in this league,’’ Petke said. “We have Roy Miller, who’s comfortable playing centrally, as he did after the red card this weekend and as he does with his national team in Costa Rica. We have those two for sure. After that, God forbid something happened to both of those two.”
“It’d be a mix-and-match type thing. You could take your pick of guys going back there to [Richard] Eckersley, [Kosuke] Kimura, you could even slide Dax [McCarty] back there. But we’re hoping we’re not even going to come close to having to make a decision like that.’’