RECAP: Mijahir Jimenez’s First Start Slays the Lions, 3-2
With some players suspended via accumulated yellow cards and red cards, the team rotated a lot of players for the game.
One of these rotations was the addition of Mijahir Jimenez instead of Jorge Ruvalcaba, who accumulated five yellow cards, making him ineligible for the game.
This was also Jimenez’s first start and second ever appearance in the MLS, and he scored a brace.
In the 23rd minute of the first half, he received a pass from Gustav Breggren, who replaced Adri Mehmeti, and opened his goal-scoring ledger in the MLS. Jimenez was in the right time and place for the easy tap-in goal against Maxime Crepeau, the starting goalkeeper for the Canadian National Team.
For this play, Dylan Nealis received a pass from Roald Donkor, who then passed it to Emil Forsberg, who one-time passed it to Breggren for the cross to Jimenez.
Near the end of the first half, Forsberg also scored to make it 2-0 before the end of the half. In this play, Forsberg passed it to Donkor, who then passed it to Justin Che, and then the ball gets moved up to Cade Cowell, who makes a pass that cuts through the Orlando defense like a hot knife through butter for Forsberg, who breaks in uncovered as the defenders thought he was offside. After receiving the ball from Cowell, Forsberg gets a one-on-one against Crepeau, where he moves to the right, ironically making it harder for the shot on goal, which resulted in a shot that had a little window. If Forsberg went to the left, he could’ve had an easier shot on goal.
If the first half was a dominance by the Red Bulls, then the second was when Orlando started to wake up. In the 52nd minute of the game, the Lions discounted with a goal made by Tyrese Spicer, which Braian Ojeda assisted. This goal started with a corner taken by Antoine Griezman, which was headed at first by Griffin Dorsey; it then got to Braian Ojeda, who headed it again, and Spicer headed it a third time. In this goal, there is a microcosm of what the Red Bulls’ major weakness is: the defense. At no point in the goal-scoring action did any of the defenders touch the ball or make a play for it.
Seventeen minutes later, Jimenez closed the book on the comeback for Orlando for a while. Normally, when a team goes two goals up in the sixtieth minute of the game, the lid on the victory is set, but with the defense that the Red Bulls have, it is no sure thing. The beginning of this play is Mathew Dos Santos, who gives the ball to Julian Hall, who then passes it to Donkor, and then there is a pass to Nealis. Near the end of the play, Nealis made a pass that Cowell was able to beat Bernardo Rhein at the touchline and then passed it to the middle, which Jimenez one-timed and was able to find the upper right corner of the goal, making it almost impossible for Crepeau.
The last goal of the game happened three minutes after the Jimenez brace. This again was a major mistake by the defense as Orlando was able to go through it with not so much opposition. This goal originated near the midfield as Ivan Angulo passed the ball to David Brekalo, who then passed it to Robin Jansson, who was able to have a pass that cut through the defense to Spicer, who then passed it to Griezman and finally to Dorsey. At the end of the game, there was a barrage of shots on Ethan Horvath, but Horvath was able to repel them.
On a bitter note, the fans were not able to enter the game as the Red Bulls App and Sports Illustrated Ticket App went down.
This persisted until fifty minutes before the game.
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