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‘Trophy or Bust’ For Red Bulls II

By NICHOLAS MURRAY - nicholas.murray@uslsoccer.com, 10/22/16, 8:22PM EDT

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USL Cup Final hosts focused on ending record-setting season on a high


Photo courtesy New York Red Bulls II

WHIPPANY, N.J. – The New York Red Bulls are expecting the best the Swope Park Rangers have to throw at them in the 2016 USL Cup Final, Presented by Nike, on Sunday night at Red Bull Arena (8 p.m. ET | ESPNU).

And, they wouldn’t have it any other way.

“We’re always saying we want them to play their very best, because we want to beat them at their best,” said defender Aaron Long on Saturday after final preparations for his side had concluded at the Red Bulls Training Facility.

It certainly hasn’t been the easiest path to the USL Cup Final for the USL Regular Season champions. The Red Bulls II had to come from behind in each of their past two contests before winning in a penalty shootout. Should they go to overtime against the Rangers, it would mark the first time any side has played three such matches in one USL postseason in the league’s history.

“If we do end up going into overtime this game, we’ll have played three 30-minute segments extra than everybody else, and that’s a whole other game,” Long added. “Maybe for us to win the championship we’ve got to play five games instead of four?”

Levity aside, the Red Bulls II are focused on the task in hand. While they didn’t watch too much of the Rangers in the regular season, the side has been paying close attention to its opponents’ strong recent run  of form, which has  Swope Park on a seven-game winning streak entering Sunday’s contest.

At the same time, the Red Bulls II believe that the recipe they’ve had for success throughout their season will remain the same.

“We’re really focused on doing what we need to do,” Derrick Etienne Jr. said. “We don’t really focus on other teams, I feel that’s been a key part to our success this year that we’ve gone out, no matter who it is or where we are, and we’ve put the game on our terms. I think that’s going to be very important for us to keep our tempo high, continue our high press.”

As successful as the side has been throughout a season that saw the Red Bulls II rewrite the USL regular season record book, one more win is a necessity.

“It would be the fairytale ending,” Etienne said. “We’ve gone out there, we’ve broken a lot of records. We’ve shown that we’re the best team in the Eastern Conference, but for us it was at the beginning of the season, we want to win the USL Cup. None of the records, winning the Eastern Conference matters if we don’t lift that trophy. It’s trophy or bust for us.”

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