Cade Cowell, Red Bulls take aim at suddenly porous Crew

The New York Red Bulls aim to build on a rare win when they host the struggling Columbus Crew on Wednesday in Harrison, N.J.

Even though first-year Red Bulls coach Michael Bradley was pleased with how his young team (4-5-3, 15 points) had been playing, it took a 3-1 win at the Chicago Fire on Saturday to break an 0-3-2 skid.

Perhaps no one got a bigger boost from the outcome than Cade Cowell, who scored his first goal for the Red Bulls in his 10th match.

He is on a one-year loan from Guadalajara in Mexico, where in the past two seasons he scored 12 goals and had five assists in 69 matches. Prior to that, the 22-year-old U.S. national team forward made 104 appearances for the San Jose Earthquakes from 2020-23 and had 10 goals and 14 assists.

"Cade is a really, really good guy, really hard worker," Bradley said. "And for sure, the part of not having scored was weighing on him in a little ways so from a personal standpoint, really happy that he could get his first goal. It came at a really important time and we're going to keep pushing him because I think that there's even more there actually."

Cowell and his teammates will try to exploit a leaky Crew (3-6-3, 12 points). Since taking a 2-0 lead on Minnesota United in the 56th minute on May 2, Columbus has allowed six unanswered goals in a 3-2 loss to the Loons and a 3-0 setback at New York City FC on Sunday.

It may be no coincidence that defender Malte Amundsen left the Minnesota match at halftime with a thigh injury and has not played since. He trained on Tuesday and may be available vs. the Red Bulls.

"We definitely miss him," Crew head coach Henrik Rydstrom said on Tuesday. "He is so important in understanding how we play."

Yet, it may take an attitude adjustment to break a two-match losing streak.

"We haven't put in that 90-minute performance week in and week out so far," Rydstrom said. "Maybe two games, then not so good. You don't see it coming."

--Field Level Media