Red Bulls to face RailHawks in March friendly
With a bye week to fill in the opening weekend of the MLS season, the New York Red Bulls will be heading south for some competition.
The Red Bulls will play the Carolina Rail Hawks on March 28 at 7:30pm at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, NC.
The Red Bulls had been slated to face the San Jose Earthquakes in the first match for the expansion team, but issues with the Earthquakes' temporary stadium forced the match to be cancelled. Now the Red Bulls and San Jose are the only two MLS teams not playing in week one.
Ives Galarcep is an American soccer columnist for ESPNsoccernet.com and creator of SoccerByIves.net.
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w00t! I was already stoked for the Railhawks' second season after they signed the USL-1 scoring leader, the USL-2 scoring leader and a quality midfielder this offseason, but seeing Angel & Altidore come to NC will be awesome.
BTW, the Railhawks were 2-1 against MLS clubs in their inaugural season. We beat Chivas USA 2-0 in a friendly, beat the pre-Blanco Chicago Fire 1-0 in the U.S. Open Cup and took the Revs to extra time before losing 1-0 in the Open Cup semifinals. And now we have some actual offense. Don't think this one will be a cakewalk, E.S.C. members!
Posted by: Dave's Football Blog | January 28, 2008 at 04:25 PM
RailHawks fan here: I'm stoked but how good will we be? USL season doesn't start until April 19th...
Posted by: Adam | January 28, 2008 at 04:54 PM
Finally! Yes, Yes, Yes!
This will be my first live game with an MLS team! Please, please, let the big names play.
Posted by: socmin | January 28, 2008 at 07:06 PM
MLS not releasing its schedule until a few weeks before the season starts makes it look small-time. Hell, MLB has had its schedule of "working out the booze" games (Cactus League) out for ages now, never mind the actual real games that matter ...
Posted by: KingSnake | January 29, 2008 at 08:53 AM
"MLS not releasing its schedule until a few weeks before the season starts makes it look small-time..."
or like Serie A
Posted by: CD | January 29, 2008 at 09:57 AM
I'm going to go out on a limb and say RB is not going to be too concerned about the result in this one. But I'll bet they'll field their first XI.
Posted by: Joamiq | January 29, 2008 at 10:03 AM
So KingSnake,
What other league in the US plays in international tournaments during their regular season and potentially has players called away to international duties during their regular season? MLB players complained about a pre-season tournament when the league started the baseball world cup knock off tournament. The amount of scheduling conflicts the MLS has to deal with makes scheduling a laborious task. They also have the added challenge in the last two years of working in national television games on ESPN2.
Posted by: CD | January 29, 2008 at 10:07 AM
Railhawks are cool, i think our current trialists Tighe Dombrowski's brother plays for you guys. Chad.
Glad the club decided to schedule a match after we got screwed by San Jose. Hope you guys doen there enjoy the match and i hope MLSnet will stream the game for us here in NY.
Posted by: Onionsack | January 29, 2008 at 03:17 PM