Aaron Long scored the lone goal to lift the visiting New York Red Bulls to a 1-0 victory against Sporting Kansas City on Sunday.
New York (9-5-5, 32 points) was 0-3-1 in its previous four road matches.
Kansas City (4-11-4, 16 points) dropped its third straight at home for the first time since Aug. 23-Sept. 26, 2014.
Sporting controlled the opening half, attempting 10 shots on 58 percent of the touches. They had three free kicks and a pair of corners through the first 13 minutes but couldn’t find the back of the net.
Red Bulls goalkeeper Carlos Coronel stopped Johnny Russell down low in the 17th minute. Six minutes later, he dived to snare a Daniel Salloi chance from outside the goal area and a minute later denied Khiry Shelton from above the box.
A weather delay forced the two sides to retreat to their dressing rooms in the 29th minute, postponing the match for 40 minutes.
Sporting picked up where it left off after the pause but still couldn’t convert.
In the 44th minute, quick passing from Shelton to Salloi to Russell finished with the Kansas City captain’s shot from above the goal area but Coronel got his foot on it.
The action picked up at both ends in the second half.
New York’s Cristian Casseres Jr. tried to feed Tom Barlow on a give-and-go in the 47th minute but his pass rolled over the endline and a minute later Barlow sent a shot into the stands.
Kansas City goalkeeper Tim Melia denied a Cameron Harper shot in the 51st minute. Then Russell headed the other way and got in on Coronel but the keeper got his hand on the ball, and Melia followed up with a sharp save on a distance shot from Luquinhas in the 53rd minute.
New York struck first just moments later, Long heading in a shot from Lewis Morgan to give the visitors a 1-0 lead. The goal went to video review for offside but was upheld.
Red Bulls defender Sean Nealis was assessed a red card in the 72nd minute for denying a goal scoring opportunity due to a handball near the box, leaving the visitors down to 10 men for the remainder of the match.
–Field Level Media
