Union-New York Red Bulls prediction: Will a reunion with Cory Burke be a trap game?

A short trip up the highway to face the last-place team in Major League Soccer’s Eastern Conference should be easy fodder for a Union win.

But it’s never easy when the Union play the Red Bulls. The teams play similar high-pressing styles and usually end up pressing each other into oblivion. José Andrés Martínez’s continued absence because of a hamstring injury will hurt the Union’s attack, and New York’s big-money striker Dante Vanzeir is still suspended for using a racist slur in a game.

So all eyes will be on Cory Burke, the former Union stalwart who joined the Red Bulls as a free agent over the winter. New York gave him a two-year deal with an option for a third, more time (and undoubtedly more money with it) than the Union offered.

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On the other side of the field, Jack McGlynn returns to Red Bull Arena, where he had one of the highlight plays of his Union career in last year’s visit. The play set up a Mikael Uhre goal, and he could use another. Though Uhre has five goals this year, he has scored them in only two games.

Fortunately, the second of those game was the Union’s last regular-season contest. Unfortunately, the team’s games since then were the Champions League semifinal contests against Los Angeles FC. After the decisive game in Los Angeles, Union manager Jim Curtin looked and sounded unusually dejected.

This game (7:30 p.m., Apple TV, paywalled) starts a three-game cross-country road trip for the Union, and a stretch of up to 10 contests in 36 days. All things considered, it’s a must-win. But something seems not right at the moment.

Then again, I’m on a pretty good streak right now of getting these predictions wrong.

Prediction: Union 1, Red Bulls 1.

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