After being outclassed by Barcelona in midweek, and finding his team 1-0 down at home to perennially dominant rivals D.C. United Sunday, New York coach Juan Carlos Osorio might have been forgiven for a more pessimistic thought than, “We’ll see what we are made of.” For once, though, his team delivered, showing what Osorio called “the fight, the commitment, the desire to compete for every ball.”
Two-goal striker Juan Pablo Angel was also pleased that the team at last showed some steel. “We didn’t want to concede a goal early, but it happened,” he told Frank Giase. “But then we showed what we haven’t shown during the year. We fought back, we showed a lot of character, a lot of resilience, and we won a very difficult game against a very difficult side.”
New York had yet to win a game this year when trailing, and the 4-1 victory was the first time they’d scored more than twice in a game in almost a year. It set up an intriguing run-in for the playoff spots in the Eastern Conference, with New York, D.C., Toronto and the Kansas City Wizards all tied on 25 points with just over one third of the regular season to play.