Red Bulls earn a point on the road

In a hard fought game in a raucous venue at BMO field in Toronto, the Red Bulls will be happy to come away with a point on the road. The New York side controlled a good portion of the game, but rarely found a clear look at goal. With star forward Juan Pablo Angel returning and for the first time having projected starters Hunter Freeman and Dane Richards available we saw yet another new look for the Red Bulls. On the road against a red hot Toronto club, Coach Osorio elected to go with four defenders as he had previously done on the road. With injuries to Chris Leitch and Carlos Mendes, Hunter Freeman was thrust into a starting role in his first match of the season. Jeff Parke held his regular role in the center of the defense, joined by Kevin Goldthwaite. Dave van den Bergh dropped back from the midfield to play left back for this contest. After last week's second half penalty kick and all around energetic performance, Mike Magee earned a spot in the starting line-up, and Danleigh Borman returned on the left flank. With Angel healthy, Wolyniec returned to the bench. New York controlled the possession early but was unable to do much with it. After a questionable call in the 22nd minute, Laurent Robert took a free kick before the Red Bulls seemed to be ready, and found the head of Marco Velez alone in front of Jon Conway. Velez powerfully headed the ball home past an irate Jon Conway to open the scoring. The away team responded well and slowly started buildups of their own until the 39th minute when they earned a dangerous free kick off a handball. Dave van den Bergh stepped up and slotted it outside of the wall to the far post beating Greg Sutton just inside the post. Sutton appeared to be screened by the wall as the far post should be his responsibility. The second half began with Sinisa Ubiparipovic coming on for Claudio Reyna who was subbed off with a mystery "lower leg injury". Sinisa struggled a bit containing Maurice Edu who got forward a bit more, but neither team saw many great chances during the second half. Dane Richards got his first action of the season as a second half sub and looked confident in his return, while he didn't get much chance to show off. The best chance of the second half was thwarted as a ball snuck through to an onrushing Danny Dichio but Conway slid out to smother it long before anyone could latch on. The Red Bulls next take on a flying Landon Donovan, "Goldenballs" Beckham and the rest of the LA Galaxy (can you name them?) a week from Saturday.