The Red Bulls worst-to-first season ended last night, their dreams of an MLS Cup run struck down by San Jose’s Bobby Convey and their own brutal defending.
The regular-season Eastern Conference champs came into last night’s conference semifinal holding a one-goal aggregate lead from their road win Saturday in California. They left with a humbling 3-1 beating at the hands of the lowest seed in the playoffs, stunning their home playoff-record crowd of 22,839.
“At the decisive moments, we were not good enough,” said coach Hans Backe, who saw Convey score San Jose’s first two goals and set up Chris Wondolowski for the 81st-minute winner. And Backe’s Red Bulls — whose 10-win and 30-point jumps from last year marked the biggest turnaround in MLS history — could only lick their wounds and wonder what went wrong.
“We felt we had a strong team to go all the way, but we didn’t prove it. San Jose played better than us. They capitalized on our mistakes, and in the end we played a high price,” said Juan Pablo Angel, whose 78th-minute goal off a Juan Agudelo cross pulled the Red Bulls within 2-1, and even on aggregate.
“Honestly I thought that we had the better team to win the league. . . . But you have to get the business done on the field and in the playoffs. If you take a day off, it is very costly, as it proved [last night].”
Angel, 35, is out of contract and likely out of New York, but the captain had hoped to leave with an MLS Cup. That won’t be the case, after the Red Bulls made one of the more disappointing playoff exits in recent memory. Since MLS went to its two-legged playoff format in 2003, only one favorite had ever won the road leg and failed to advance. Now make that two.
“We didn’t take out chances and we let [in] three goals,” said right back Chris Albright. “The guys in the back and everybody has to look themselves in the mirror.”
There should be much soul-searching after left back Roy Miller got beat by midfielder Scott Sealy, who laid the ball back to Ryan Johnson. The latter crossed into the box, and when the Red Bulls couldn’t clear, Convey ran onto the ball and beat keeper Bouna Coundoul upper 90 with a side-foot shot from 15 yards out.
Convey turned on Tim Ream and scored a left-footed blast in the 76th. Angel nodded home a cross two minutes later to cut the lead to 2-1, and even the series on aggregate.
But three minutes after that Convey found Wondowlowski, who beat Miller for the winner.
The insertion of Thierry Henry — out the last three games with a knee injury — couldn’t help.
“It’s like quicksand,” said Coundoul. “The more you try to move the more you go down.”