Bradley Wright-Phillips' two-goal performance Sunday night led the New York Red Bulls to a 3-0 win over MLS rivals DC United.
With the win, the Red Bulls keep the Atlantic Cup, which is the annual trophy given out between DC United and the New York Red Bulls. The Red Bulls won the season series this year - DC with two wins and a draw, outscoring them 7-2.
The Red Bulls opened up the scoring in the latest edition of the Atlantic Cup when Lloyd Sam got a great pass from Wright-Phillips and Kemar Lawrence to make Red Bull Arena go crazy in the 33rd minute.
Almost 10 minutes later, Mike Grella had a beautiful cross to BWP, who put it past Bill Hamid for an absolutely beautiful goal in the upper 90. BWP would add another one in the second half, slowing down to stay onside and then going into the box and beating Hamid for his second of the night, finishing behind the net with his signature clicking of the heels goal celebration to make it 3-0.
After the game, Wright-Phillips talked about the Red Bulls 2-1 loss on Wednesday to the Chicago Fire.
“I think last week we didn’t turn up we weren’t creative, we didn’t defend well and today we wanted to make that right, it was a great performance over a good team.”
Jesse Marsch added, “It’s good games we’ve had, I think the main thing was we felt that we didn’t have enough good performances in Chicago, and a night like tonight we didn’t have one bad performance. You can talk about the tactics and everything else, but if you have 11 guys on the field that have good performances, then you are going to win.”
The only discipline of the game came from DC United. In the eighth minute Steve Birnbaum and in the 65th minute Connor Doyle both got yellow cards.
The Red Bulls finished the match with 24 shots, while DC finished with only nine shots. Only two of DC’s shots were on target. The Red Bulls subbed off Kemar Lawrence, Bradley Wright-Phillips and Dax McCarty. They subbed on new DP Gonzalo Verón, Sal Zizzo, and Sean Davis. DC United subbed off Chris Pontius, Markus Hastl, and Alvaro Sabado. They subbed on Michael Farfan, Conor Doyle, and Jairo Arrieta. The announced attendance at RBA was a sell out at 22,645.
With the win, the Red Bulls leapfrog the Columbus Crew for second place in the Eastern Conference. They are only two points behind DC United, who are in first in the conference.
The Red Bulls go back at it on Friday against the Chicago Fire at Red Bull Arena. DC United go to Colorado on Saturday to play the Rapids, trying to get back on the right track.