History was made Sunday afternoon in the Bronx, on a couple of different fronts.
New York City FC defeated the New York Red Bulls for the first time in five tries, beating the visitors, 2-0.
It was also the first time NYCFC had back-to-back clean sheet victories.
“I’m really pleased because the team was really organized, determined, and worked really well for each other – and of course, taking the three points because what is important for us is trying to have this kind of consistency game after game,” NYCFC coach Patrick Vieira said. “I’m also really pleased because we didn’t concede a goal.”
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Because Ronald Matarrita was battling an ankle injury and wasn’t 100 percent, Vieira had to tweak his back four and insert Jason Hernandez in at right back and slide RJ Allen over to the left side with Frederic Brillant and Jefferson Mena partnering in front of Josh Saunders.
Vieira also displayed a new wrinkle to deal with the Red Bulls high press.
“I think we just did our homework. We knew they were quite really aggressive when they are putting pressure on the ball and they commit a lot of players,” Vieira said. “One of the ideas behind bringing RJ and Jason quite really deep was just to create more distances between their outside back to close out our outside back. That gave us a little more time to make a decision.”
Vieira praised the play of Mena, who earned his first two starts since playing just 28 minutes in a 1-1 draw with New England on March 26.
“I was pleased with the game he had against the Cosmos and Seattle he was really good,” Vieira said. “Tonight, I thought he was fantastic and if he keeps working like he did in the last few weeks of training and play like that, there is no reason why I would have to take him off of the team.”
Mena helped make sure Saunders didn’t have much to do as the veteran goalkeeper notched his fourth clean sheet of the season. Saunders made just three saves as NYCFC defended well as a unit.
“We’re defending better the last few weeks,” NYCFC captain David Villa said. “If we’re still like that, we’re good.”
