Rest Does the Bulls Good

• Newark Star-Ledger, Monday, August 13, 2007 3:45 PM

In the middle of a season, it's not often that you'll hear talk about a 16-day layoff as being a good thing for a soccer team, but it certainly looks as though rest and recuperation have done a world of good for Coach Bruce Arena and the New York Red Bulls, who stormed back to their opening season form with a comprehensive 3-0 battering of TFC at Giants Stadium on Sunday.

"Typically in sports, layoffs sometimes don't work to your advantage," Arena said, "especially in this sport where it's so important to get a good rhythm in your play." But the Red Bulls have "been physically just beat up the whole season," he said, "and to have a little time off and to re-evaluate each player individually, which we did over these two weeks with them, was important."

In particular, Frank Giase of the Newark Star-Ledger says the time forwards Jozy Altidore and Juan Pablo Angel spent together in training really paid off, as evidenced by the goals they scored: Altidore bagged two to take his season tally to five, while Angel added another goal and assist. Altidore called Angel "a real easy guy to play with" up front. "You just have to run in and sniff out all the balls that he wins and just connect from there," he said. Most important for the Bulls, perhaps, was the fact that Toronto didn't register a single shot on goal in 90 minutes. Injury-hit TFC is now scoreless in 462 minutes, 95 away from surpassing the league record. Also of note, Claudio Reyna limped off the field with an injury in the 22nd minute.

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