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Mansally's late goal gives Revolution tie with Red Bulls

Mar 29, 2009 - 4:05 AM EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey (AP) -- The New England Revolution have dominated the New York Red Bulls franchise for the last seven years, going back to the days when they were known as the MetroStars.

And no one really knows why.

"It's a great question and a difficult one to answer," Red Bulls captain Juan Pablo Angel said after his team couldn't hold on to a late lead and had to settle for a 1-1 tie against its fiercest rival.

With less than a minute to play, it looked like the Red Bulls (0-1-1) were going to win a game without scoring themselves.

They got their goal in the 35th minute, when midfielder Khano Smith's crossing pass was inadvertently put into the goal by New England defender Jay Heaps.

But with just about 36 seconds left to play, Kenny Mansally snuck behind the defense and knocked home a pass from Shalrie Joseph to tie the score for New England (1-0-1). New York then had a chance to win in the closing seconds, but Luke Sassano's hard shot sailed just wide.

It was the 13th straight time, dating back to Sept. 17, 2005, that the Red Bulls' franchise came away without a victory against New England. Overall, the Revolution improved to 10-2-10 against the franchise dating back to the 2002 season.

"It really is tough to swallow," Angel said. "It felt like we lost the game. We should have won it."

Red Bulls head coach Juan Carlos Osorio called the game-tying goal "naivety" on his team's part.

"We have to be definitely more clever than that with the lead," Osorio said. "We need to take responsibility with the ball in the last minute, in the last few seconds. We didn't slow the game down in the closing minutes and that's just very na??ve."

Red Bulls goalkeeper Danny Cepero, who had 10 saves, was heartbroken after surrendering the late goal.

"It's such a devastating goal to give up so late in the game." Cepero said. "We could have done a better job with game management in the last few minutes. I should have done a better job responding to the ball; I should have been able to stop that ball. It's devastating, because we put 89 minutes of really hard work and had a breakdown in the last few seconds. It's really frustrating."

Cepero had two big saves in the first half, making a sliding kick save on a shot by Wells Thompson in the 29th minute and stopping a shot by Joseph just 3 minutes later. But he was matched in net by New England's Brad Knighton, who made three saves in his MLS debut.

Knighton was filling in for Matt Reis, a late scratch due to swelling in his knee.

Despite the disappointing outcome, Osorio said he and his team will move on.

"I just told the guys that I felt sorry for them," Osorio said. "After they played such a hard fought game, they gave it away like that. They competed well against a very tough team. I'm not going to let this bother me. We're going to move on from this and it's my job to prepare the team better."