The New York Red Bulls currently sit in second place in the Eastern Conference. This is not surprising, as the team has been competitive over the past few seasons. What is surprising is that they have yet to win a game at home! They are winless at home in 4 matches, yet they are undefeated on the road in 5 matches. This is highly abnormal and is rarely seen in professional sports.
It is entirely reasonable to assume that a team would perform better at home than on the road. After all, they’re in front of their home fans and are playing in their home stadium. There is no travel involved, no hotels, and their friends and family are far more likely to attend the games. Despite these clear advantages, the New York Red Bulls have yet to win a game at home. They instead seem to thrive off of the hate and pressure from opposing fans. After all, there is no better feeling than silencing an entire stadium.
In their 4 home matches the Red Bulls are 0-2-2. It started when they lost to Minnesota 0-1 and followed that up with a 1-1 draw with the Columbus Crew. Both of these teams were formidable and both games were tightly contested. Yet the Red Bulls should have won both games as they dominated statistically, especially when it came to shots and shots on goal. The next match was 1-2 loss to Montreal which was then followed by a scoreless tie against Dallas. Both of these matches told a similar story, as New York edged Montreal in most categories and dominated against Dallas. Despite this statistical dominance, they were unable to win any of these 4 matches.
The New York Red Bulls are a totally different team on the road. They are 5-0-0 on the road and they are annihilating every team they face. It started in their season opener as they handily beat San Jose 1-3. They then easily handled Toronto 1-4 with all 4 goals coming before halftime. They followed that up by beating New England Revolution on a 90th minute own goal to escape with a 0-1 win. After that they blew out Orlando 0-3 in a game that was never close, as Orlando never even got a shot on goal. Their most recent road game resulted in a 1-2 come from behind victory over Chicago.
New York is winning big and dominating on the road. Yet they struggle to score goals at home and have yet to even win a game in front of the home crowd. This is extremely abnormal. Especially for a team that currently is second in their conference. There is the possibility that they even out and start winning games at home. But there is also the possibility that they keep racking up road wins and get carried to the playoffs because of it. We will have to wait and see just how long the Red Bulls can keep up this road warrior persona.
