QUICK CHANGE
Rotten performance puts a crimp in Red Bull's good vibes
THE RED Bulls will get a week before their next match to think about what happened to them Friday night, when they were embarrassed on the wrong end of an ugly 52 loss to Orlando City SC at home.
The Red Bulls were five days removed from a rousing win in Portland that clinched a playoff berth for them and they followed that with their worst home loss of the season — yielding more goals than they have in a game all season as their record at Red Bull Arena fell to 932.
The Red Bulls will hope this was a hiccup, a blip on the schedule, an anomaly.
“A night where you feel like everything that can go wrong does,’’ coach Jesse Marsch said. “You have nights like this. I promise you this: This team won’t be fazed by this. It’s a hard one to take. It’s a kick in the teeth, but we will find a way to regroup.
“Was our mentality not right? Were we on cruise control? I don’t think so. The game in Portland was a big win in a lot of different ways, but I felt that our team was focused coming into this.’’
Marsch, though, was somewhat prescient in a conversation with The Post before Friday’s match while addressing the perch on which the Red Bulls sat. They entered the night tied for the MLS lead in points and were in the driver’s seat to capture the Supporters’ Shield as the top team in the league and a favorite to win the MLS Cup for the first time in franchise history.
“It is an opportunity,’’ Marsch said before the match. “But there’s plenty of twists and turns left in this season. There’s nothing guaranteed at any point during the season, and we’ve shown over time that we actually thrive on adversity. We’re not afraid. This group is not afraid.’’
Yes, but Friday night’s mess has to be alarming — particularly because the Red Bulls’ best defender, Matt Miazga, will be available to the team for only one of its final five matches because of his scheduled upcoming Olympicqualifying duty and the twogame suspension he will receive for the being sent off Friday with two cards.
After the match, Marsch sounded as if his team was distracted by the talk of all of the delicious opportunities ahead.
“Everyone started talking about the Supporters’ Shield and all this crap,’’ he said. “I don’t care about the Supporters’ Shield, I just want us to continue to move along and [Friday] was a step backward for us. But that’s OK. We’re going to learn from it and we’re going to become stronger for it.’’
The night was a bitter disappointment for a Red Bulls franchise that looked ready to take off.
Who would have predicted the Red Bulls — albeit in a lowerprofile sport in our highprofile metropolis — would retain their place as the most consistent winning team in the area, one of the best team sports stories we have going now outside of the Mets’ resurgence?
Based on the jarring, negative vibe that emanated from the nowinfamous “town hall meeting’’ with the team’s disgruntled fan base just nine months ago, who would have been surprised to see the Red Bulls spiral toward the bottom of the table this season? Not many. Sure the Red Bulls won the Supporters’ Shield two seasons ago and came within a goal of advancing to the MLS Cup final last year.
But, after hiring a new general manager (Ali Curtis), they fired popular coach Mike Petke following last season (drawing the nearviolent ire of the fan base in that town hall meeting), Thierry Henry, the faceoftheteam superstar, retired, and they slashed the payroll from $11.8 million to $4.22 million, secondlowest in the league.
Incredibly, none of those issues dragged the onfield product down. Even after Friday, the Red Bulls 1496 and are tied with the Vancouver Whitecaps with a leaguehigh 48 points. With a game in hand to Vancouver, the Red Bulls still have their Supporters’ Shield destiny in their hands.
“We understand the opportunity that sits in front of us,’’ Red Bulls goalkeeper Luis Robles told The Post. “This season for us will be a disappointment if it doesn’t end in some sort of hardware. We want to show our fans some sort of silverware at the end of the season that culminates in: ‘Hey, this is the hard work we put in and this is what we have for you.’
“So for us, the Supporters’ Shield and MLS Cup is very much on our radar.’’
Not, however, with more sloppy performances like Friday night’s.