Bad things arrived in threes as Bradley Carnell and the Union are humbled by rival New York

New York snapped a six-year winless streak against the Union, who needed to scramble following what appeared to be another serious injury for star goalkeeper Andre Blake.

Union captain Alejandro Bedoya looks to rally the team ahead of Saturday's road game against I-95 rival Red Bull New York.Read moreCourtesy / Union

by Kerith Gabriel

Published Aug. 17, 2025, 9:19 a.m. ET

If you were to ask anyone who has routine conversations with Bradley Carnell, they’d probably tell you the first-year Union manager is pretty even keel, infrequently displays emotion, and rarely shares his hand.

But if anyone had heard him for the first time after a 1-0 weekend road loss to Red Bull New York — a result that snapped the Union’s six-game unbeaten streak in all competitions — you might wonder if it’s customary for Carnell to be as animated as he was following Saturday’s match.

In the loss, the Union (15-6-6, 51 points) also found itself leapfrogged by FC Cincinnati (16-7-4, 52 points) at the top of Major League Soccer’s Eastern Conference standings.

In his postgame news conference, Carnell sounded off on everything from the poor, choppy field conditions inside Sports Illustrated Stadium, to the officials nitpicking over the placement of the ball on a pivotal penalty kick attempt in the 68th minute from Bruno Damiani, which ended with longtime New York goalkeeper Carlos Coronel stymieing the Uruguayan striker.

But the root cause of it all — and Carnell also hinted to this — was the sting of Red Bull New York snapping a six-year winless drought against the Union. You’d have to go back to Sept. 22, 2019, for the last time New York celebrated a win over the Union, back when Sports Illustrated Stadium was still referred to as Red Bull Arena — and COVID-19 wasn’t on anyone’s radar, at least not here in the United States.

“Not a proud moment to sit here in this building … to be here with my team, and we go down, 1-0,” said a visibly upset Carnell postgame. “The momentum doesn’t go our way when we get the penalty. And four minutes later, [New York] scored the goal … We’ll take this one on the chin. Streaks are meant to be broken at some point. It’s just unfortunate it happened here in this building.”

In what was the Union’s third game against the Red Bull in a little over a month and their second in a week, after knocking the club out of U.S. Open Cup contention in Wednesday’s quarterfinal, Carnell trotted out a lineup that was anything but customary.

Names like Tai Baribo, Quinn Sullivan and Indiana Vassilev (the latter was left out due to a concussion sustained in Wednesday’s Open Cup win over Red Bull New York) were replaced with names like Chris Donovan, Jesus Bueno, and Milan Iloski. But the biggest setback arrived in the 22nd minute when goalkeeper Andre Blake appeared to tweak his hamstring after coming out for a ball against New York’s Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting.

After going to punt the ball out of his 18-yard-box, Blake winced in pain and fell to the ground. He was replaced five minutes later by 19-year-old homegrown Andrew Rick.

Carnell seemed to affirm that Blake suffered a tweak to his hamstring, noting that Red Bulls team physicians were examining him postgame.

“The ball gets played over the back to Chuopo-Moting, [Andre] thinks he can get out there and intercept it,” said Carnell. “[In his mind], he says, ‘Boy, he felt it’s too far away,’ so he had to put on the brakes … and at the deceleration, I feel that’s when it happened.”

With Blake’s injury and some international duty leaving the Union thin, Rick, the Berwyn, Pa., native earned his 11th appearance of the season.

New York’s lone goal was one that Rick will regret not getting his mitts on as he had the angle on Red Bulls forward Dylan Nealis before he hit a low driving ball right into the far netting in the 71st minute.

No matter how many times you watch the moment, it’s hard not to argue that Rick should have done better to corral it, or that it was unfortunate the Union as a collective didn’t do better to prevent the switch to Nealis from happening.

Carnell agreed with the latter.

“I thought Rick was composed,” Carnell said. “These are good moments for him not knowing when to come in … and now he has to be at a high alert straight away. So it’s not easy to come into these types of environments. But he did fine. I mean, we didn’t give up much. You know, we give up the goal basically on the shot, but I don’t think we recorded or they recorded too many shots on goal. So, yeah, just a pity that the game ends the way it did.”

They say bad things occur in threes and between having a six-year record snapped on the road, losing an all-time goalkeeper — again — this season, and looking up at another Eastern Conference team after boasting the league’s best record for over a month, things can only go up for the Union, with just seven matches remaining before the MLS Cup playoffs.

Next up, a return to friendly confines against Chicago next Saturday (7:30 p.m., Apple TV, MLS Season Pass), another fringe team looking to position itself as a playoff contender.

“We have to have that mentality that these are do-or-die games for us as well, just on a different scale,” said Carnell. “We’re enjoying where we are right now … we just have to now refocus and reset and go again in a must-win game next week.”