Henry Lifts Red Bulls To 2-2 Draw With FC Dallas
HARRISON, N.J. (AP) — Thierry Henry scored his league-leading 11th goal in the 85th minute Saturday to lift the New York Red Bulls to a 2-2 draw with FC Dallas on Saturday night.
The tie put the Red Bulls (6-5-12) one point behind Eastern Conference-leading Philadelphia with 11 games remaining.
"We need points," Henry said. "We have to work hard again to come away with some points."
Henry's goal, coming after Marvin Chavez's second goal put Dallas up 2-1 in the 79th minute, came off a direct kick from newly-acquired Dax McCarty. Henry blasted it in from just to the left of the box, beating goalkeeper Kevin Hartman to the wide side.
"I was (angry) with myself in the first half because I missed one with my right foot," Henry said. "I said to myself, if I get another one, I'm going to dummy it with the right foot. So I got it from Dax and hit it with my left and it went into the net."
U.S. national team member Juan Agudelo's fifth goal of the season in the 39th minute put the Red Bulls up 1-0. Dane Richards ran the ball down the right side and fed it into the forward, who chipped the ball in a high arc over goaltender Kevin Hartman and into the far left side.
Chavez scored in the 51st minute to tie the game, and his go-ahead goal was a blast off a set piece from Jair Benitez' free kick that went off Villar and across the box to Chavez.
Dallas (11-5-6) remained three points behind West-leading Los Angeles.
Dallas nearly had another goal when the league's second-leading scorer, Brek Shea, came in on Red Bulls goalkeeper Frank Rost in the 63rd minute, only to have Rost knock it away as Shea ran over him.
"I came across wide and I made my run," Shea said. "It bounced and I couldn't get there before it bounced. I just tried to get something on it, and I ran into the goalkeeper. I thought it was a goal but, oh, well."
The Red Bulls are now 20-0-9 when scoring first in the two years under head coach Hans Backe. New York is also 2-4-10 in its last 16 games.
The Red Bulls played the final 13 minutes with 10 men thanks to a second yellow card issued to Richards in the 80th minute. He will miss New York's next MLS match, at Real Salt Lake on Aug. 6.
The Red Bulls will be heading to London for the Emirates Cup, where they will face Paris Saint-Germain next Saturday and Arsenal the following day.
While they are over there, they'll undoubtedly be thinking about opportunities lost, especially after having dominated the first half on a hot, steamy where the game time temperature neared 100 degrees at Red Bull Arena.
"We're definitely aware of the situation," defender Jan Gunnar Solli said after his line gave up two easy goals to Chavez. "Everybody was like, we really need three points tonight, but we couldn't do it. We know it's been too many tie games, and that's not something we're happy about. We need to win games, or else the playoffs are slipping away from us."
