Sean Davis scored twice in the second half as the New York Red Bulls upset Chelsea 4-2 in the English Premier League champions’ first game of their pre-season US exhibition tour.
The Red Bulls scored four times in the second half against Chelsea on Wednesday, despite fielding a large number of less experienced players.
They were also coming off a quarter-final loss less than 24 hours earlier to the Philadelphia Union in the US Open Cup competition.
Photo: AFP
New York head coach Jesse Marsch went with a youthful lineup and it paid off as midfielder Davis scored in the 73rd and 77th minutes, and 16-year-old Tyler Adams scored in the 70th minute.
Franklin Castellanos scored in the 51st minute for the Red Bulls, who were playing Chelsea for the first time.
Loic Remy in the 26th minute and Eden Hazard in the 75th scored for Chelsea, who are on a three-game tour of North America. Chelsea fielded vastly different sides in each half as just three players played a full 90 minutes.
Photo: AFP
It was a difficult Chelsea debut for goalkeeper Asmir Begovic, who came on in the second half. The Blues were without Willian and Juan Cuadrado, who were both rested after competing in the Copa America.
Davis was in the right place at the right time for both of his goals in front of a 24,000 crowd at the Red Bull Arena. He blasted a right-footed shot into the top-left corner from inside the box to make it 3-1 in the 73rd minute.
Four minutes later, he got his second after a poor clearance by a Chelsea defender.
This time he hammered a left-footed shot into the bottom-right corner past Begovic to make it 4-2.
Sandwiched in between Davis’ strikes was a goal by Chelsea’s Hazard, who pulled one back by scoring through a maze of players from just outside the box.
Adams, who was making his Red Bulls debut after playing mainly with the under-17 team, gave New York their first lead of the game, at 2-1, with a header that beat Begovic after a neat cross from Castellanos.
Remy had opened the scoring for Chelsea with a dummy, which left Red Bulls goalkeeper Kyle Reynish wrong-footed, before placing his shot into the roof of the net.
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