Felipe: “If they come to our house to make a party, it’s better to close that down.” (William Hauser/USA TODAY Sports)
Special to FrontRowSoccer.com
HANOVER, N.J. — Playing the Columbus Crew might be dwarfed by the Red Bulls’ rivalry confrontations D.C. United and New York City FC, but Felipe certainly is taking Saturday night’s game quite seriously.
After all, midfielder Felipe remembers what transpired some 18 months ago and it sounds as though he isn’t about to forget that any time soon.
“We still remember that Columbus eliminated us from the playoffs,” he told reporters at the Red Bulls training facility earlier this week. “You can be sure that every time we play we’re going to do our best to make them remember about us for the rest of the season.”
After capturing the MLS Supporters Shield for the second time in three seasons, the Red Bulls were ushered out of the playoffs by Columbus.
“If they come to our house to make a party, it’s better to close that down because they are going to come here to see a team that is hungry, wants to do well and every second of the game we’re going to try our best to put the game on our terms: score, one, two or three goals to close the game as early as soon as possible.”
Columbus (4-2-1, 13 points) enters the match atop the Eastern Conference. The Red Bulls (3-3-1, 10) are in fifth place, but haven’t allowed a goal in three home matches at Red Bull Arena.
The Red Bulls have been tough on their turf through the years.
“It’s a bit of opportunity, especially those games that you can play at the arena,” Felipe said. “I played against the Red Bulls when I wasn’t here [with the Montreal Impact] and I know every time I came to the arena it was a hard game. But it depends on us to put teams on a hard game, and do the things that we did during the week.”
