CHESTER, Penn. – Mike Petke was so peeved about the controversial penalty kick that he went for a quick walk inside of PPL Park before speaking to the media.
It did not work. Not completely anyway.
The New York Red Bulls head coach was still visibly irritated when he met with reporters on Saturday evening, having moments earlier witnessed his club settle for a late 2-2 draw vs. the Philadelphia Union instead of a 2-1 win because of a questionable call on Red Bulls defender Ibrahim Sekagya.
Match official Allen Chapman pointed to the spot seconds before the end of the game, whistling Sekagya for a stoppage-time foul on Union forward Pedro Ribeiro in the 18-yard box. Replays, however, seemed to indicate that Sekagya whiffed on his two attempts to clear the ball before Ribeiro kicked the Red Bulls defender’s foot and crumbled to the ground.
Whether Chapman awarding a spot kick to the Union was simply a bad decision or a make-up call for having earlier given New York's Peguy Luyindula a controversial penalty of his own, the fact remained that Sebastien Le Toux had a chance to rescue a point for his side in the 92nd minute, and did just that with a cool finish.
“I didn’t foul him, I didn’t foul him,” Sekagya told MLSsoccer.com. “I just missed the ball the first time and the second time I touched the ball and then he fall down. I didn’t touch him. I just touched the ball. It was just the pressure of the referee so that he can give them the penalty, but for me it was not.”
While Chapman’s decision will be dissected plenty in the coming days, the Red Bulls surrendering an equalizing goal seemed inevitable. New York were without Designated Players Thierry Henry and Tim Cahill in the closing moments of Saturday’s rain-delayed match at PPL Park because of minor injuries that prompted their substitutions, and the club struggled mightily to keep possession as a result.
The Union took advantage of that, sending attack after attack as they scrambled for the tying goal. They came close to scoring twice late in the game, only to be thwarted by a stupendous Luis Robles. But the goal came eventually, and it was the Red Bulls who were left to rue what could have been.
“We need points,” said Henry, whose side sits in fourth place in the East. “If we had started the season like this, everybody would have been [saying], ‘Ah, what a start.’ The only thing is now we need every point that we can have. At the end, hopefully this point will be a big one. It feels like a defeat because they leveled it at the end of the game, but let’s not be to greedy because they had a good performance in the second half.”
What may have played a factor in New York’s inability to keep the ball aside from Henry’s late absence and the waterlogged field is that the game at PPL Park was their third in eight days. Robles said he noticed around the 70th minute that his teammates were gassed, and was hoping they could push through until the end.
Ultimately, they could not. Some observers may feel like Petke using his third and final substitution would have helped, but the second-year manager did not believe it was necessary with the way things were playing out.
“In that game, the way it was going, no,” said Petke when asked if he considered making his third substitution. “We go to five defenders than we [have to] take somebody out in the midfield or have no forward. It doesn’t play out that way. Everybody’s obsessed with substitutes, substitutes, substitutes. I made two substitutes tonight and we were okay with that.”
The bittersweet feeling that Petke and his Red Bulls felt might linger on their ride back to the New York area and through the night, but in the grand scheme of things the club enjoyed a strong week. They played three Eastern Conference clubs, all in the playoff picture, and came away with a 2-0-1 record.
The Red Bulls will gladly move on with that, even if the week did not end in ideal fashion.
“A little bittersweet at the end here because it’s within the last minute that the PK happened,” said Petke. “But seven points out of nine? We’ll take it.”
Franco Panizo covers the New York Red Bulls for MLSsoccer.com. He can be reached by email at Franco8813@gmail.com.
