New York trifecta: Three second-half goals send United to Open Cup quarterfinals
May 21—Tuesday night's opening half in New York City was not New Mexico United's finest hour.
The second half was one to remember.
Avionne Flanagan and Anthony Herbert netted their first goals with the club, Talen Maples knocked home his second and United advanced to the U.S. Open Cup quarterfinals with a 3-0 victory over NYCFC II at Belson Stadium in Queens.
With the win, United earned a spot in the tournament quarterfinals set for July 9-10. Matchups and sites will be announced Wednesday night after the round of 16 is completed.
"Proud of our performance," NMU coach Eric Quill said in a postgame phone interview. "The first half was kind of a stalemate and I just told the group we needed to play more attacking football. In the second half we did that, and I thought we played beautifully."
New Mexico, which won its fourth straight match and eighth in its last nine competitions, matched the deepest Open Cup run in club history. NMU also advanced to the quarterfinals in 2019 before being eliminated by MLS Minnesota United.
NMU looked primed to keep this season's hot streak going in the second half, scoring three times to knock out the final MLS Next Pro team in the tournament bracket. Flanagan gave the visitors a 1-0 lead in the 50th minute, and United gained a man advantage five minutes later when NYCFC II's Samuel Owusu picked up a straight red card.
New Mexico largely controlled things the rest of the way, but it was not necessarily an easy night in the Big Apple. The Baby Blues, as NYCFC II is known, had the better of things in the first half, outplaying and outshooting United 8-3. NMU struggled to deal with the home team's pressing defense and failed to create many scoring chances over the first 45 minutes.
"We defended well in the first half and the effort was there," Quill said. "I just felt like neither team wanted to make the first mistake."
The turning point came early in the second half.
NYCFC II missed a golden opportunity to grab the lead in the 48th minute when Jovan Mijatovic took a well-placed centering pass near NMU's 6-yard line but fired just wide of the right post.
Having dodged a bullet, United quickly went on the counterattack and found Flanagan on the left wing. Flanagan worked his way around a defender and nailed a left-footer from a tight angle into the right side of the net for a 1-0 lead.
"Ayo (Flanagan) hasn't had a lot of opportunities," Quill said, "but he's been working hard to get some. He deserved to be out there and he scored a great goal. (NYCFC II) didn't score on their first big chance, we did, and I thought we outplayed them the rest of the way."
Moments later, Owusu became frustrated trying to fend off aggressive defense from NMU's Marco Micaletto, who ultimately picked up a yellow card after grabbing Owusu's jersey. But Owusu was shown a red card after taking an apparent swing and tossing Micaletto to the turf.
Pushing and shoving followed but order was quickly restored and NYCFC II played with 10 men for the final 35 minutes.
United took advantage, twice scoring off of corner-kick opportunities. On the first, Mukwelle Akale dropped the ball to Micaletto, who served the ball toward Maples near the left post. Maples redirected it home for a 2-0 lead in the 65th minute on Micaletto's second assist of the match.
It stayed 2-0 until the 86th minute, when Maples tried another shot off a feed from Akale. His attempt deflected into the air and found Herbert, who headed it into the net from roughly 10 yards out.
"We took advantage of two set pieces and we came away with a clean sheet," Quill said. "Credit to NYCFC II, they have a lot of talented young players. Our guys did a great job not giving them much."
United returns to USL Championship play Saturday, hosting San Antonio FC at 7 p.m. at Isotopes Park.
