If Major League Soccer wanted a wild game for opening weekend to help showcase the league, they got their wish. The Red Bulls came out strong Sunday night against the Timbers and a boisterous sold-out Portland crowd, but let a two goal lead slip in the second half and earned a 3-3 draw.

Rather than recap the whole match (video highlights are available below), we're taking a different tack with match reports this season, choosing to focus on what worked, what didn't, and what was just awful.

THE GOOD

Fabian Espindola and Jamison Olave. To the fans were worried when Kenny Cooper was traded where the goals would come from, here's your answer. The pair of players acquired from RSL combined for all three goals. Espindola bossed the first half of the game, notching two goals off defensive errors, and Olave notched the third by sliding into a cross following a corner kick. (We'll forgive Olave the own goal in light of his strong defensive work for much of the game.)

The new free-form formation. Petke's decision to play a fluid attack with Henry, Espindola, Cahill, Juninho, and Ruben Bover, worked extremely well in the first half. There was a good amount of overlapping and position changing, leading to a free-flowing attack that was never seen under Hans Backe's "4-4-2 or bust" mentality. The attack occasionally derailed because of the fast artificial turf, but for a first match, it instilled a lot of hope in an area that had a lot of question marks.

The atmosphere in Portland. JELD-WEN Field and the Timbers Army have only been hosting games in MLS since 2011, but they've already turned into one of the loudest, toughest atmospheres in the league. It doesn't do it justice to describe it in text; even on TV, you don't get the same experience. It doesn't matter if you don't care for MLS - if you like soccer, you should do your best to get out there for a game.

THE BAD

The second half. It's hard to put a finger on what went wrong in the second half - fatigue, the artificial surface, or the incredibly loud crowd - but New York looked lost for almost all of the second half. The draw was kind to RBNY, as Portland pressed almost nonstop for 45 minutes. Darlington Nagbe would pull the lead back to one goal just ten minutes into the half, and José Valencia forced an own goal to level the match. Thierry Henry had a few good chances, but Donovan Ricketts came up strong to shut down the French striker.

The stat sheet. Possession doesn't necessarily win games, but it sure helps. The Timbers outshot RBNY 21-10. Portland held 62.5% of possession, largely in the second half. And NY was badly out-passed, making only 324 passes to Portland's 546. (They didn't connect, either - NY only managed 72% passing accuracy.)

Mikael Silvestre. Portland's French defender was practically NY's best player on the pitch. Both of Fabian Espindola's goals came at his expense as he made comical defensive errors. Credit to Espindola for pouncing to take advantage, but without those two mistakes, it's a very different game.

THE UGLY

The Red Bulls' travel complications. Problems with this match started two days before the whistle blew, as the Red Bulls' Friday flight to the West Coast was scratched as the result of mechanical failure. After waiting on the plane for three hours, the team collectively decided to stay in the area one additional night and take a long charter flight on Saturday. Arriving in Portland late Saturday, the team could only manage a short light training session in the rain (it is Portland, after all) to prepare. Coach Mike Petke didn't let it bother him, telling Gothamist after they arrived at the hotel, "We all had a laugh about it. I love the circumstances like this. I love when things don't work out smoothly. It doesn't feel right to me if everything perfectly into place...you have to adapt or die pretty much."

The RBNY-Timbers Rivalry. The result adds another bizarre chapter to the short history between the Red Bulls and the Timbers. Their first meeting was also a 3-3 draw in 2011 at JELD-WEN, which saw a phantom red card for Thierry Henry and a game-tying penalty kick for NY at the dying moment. Across all of four games, there have been nineteen goals, three penalty kicks, eight yellow cards, and two red cards. It's a shame these two sides won't play again this year due to the unbalanced MLS schedule.

The Red Bulls will fly back to the West Coast for a Week 2 match against last year's best regular season team, the San Jose Earthquakes. With five of their first seven games away, the points may be hard to come by early in the season - but getting a point on the road is a good statement that this team can compete.

TEAM REACTIONS

Coach Mike Petke on the result: "Very excited, very happy the way we started in the first half. We let an opportunity slip away from us - however, if you had asked us a week ago, 10 days ago, whatever, if we would like to take a point on the road in the opening game in an environment like this and a good team like this maybe you say yes. Maybe you make a deal with the devil and say yes. But at the end of the day you're on the road, but possibly we let two points slip away."

Petke on the second half: "I just think that we possibly came out with the mindset that we should save the lead instead of doing what we were doing in the first half. That falls on coaching staff first and foremost. Maybe we should have made it clearer, maybe we should've emphasized it a little more. I was yelling as much as I could from the sideline, but the crowd's phenomenal, as you can hear my voice right now. At the end of the day they battled, and there are guys in that locker room that are crushed right now. To see that type of attitude and that sort of letdown after scoring three goals on the road and getting a point on the road, which is MLS is very difficult to do, it's great to see them pissed off."

Thierry Henry on travel frustrations: "What's frustrating is the way we came here. I don't know if you heard about it, but like I said to you - we didn't prepare anything, because we were at the airport on Friday, Saturday too trying to come here. We did eventually, but we didn't prepare the game like we should have prepared the game. And you could see at the end, the last 30 minutes, everybody runs out of steam."

Dax McCarty on playing at Portland: "The ball moves so much faster. To be honest, we were a little bit surprised when the ball got to us so fast, and it's kind of like 'Oh, wow', it's about a split second faster than when you're on grass. So there's less time. Portland, they've been training here, they played their tournament here, so you could tell they were sharp. They were very sharp. And I think we were a little bit - I don't want to say casual, but certainly not good enough with the ball when we did get it."

McCarty on the new RBNY attacking style: "When we did win the ball from them, we broke out and created quite a few opportunities going forward on the break. We knew we weren't going to come in here and have the lion's share of possession, we figured they would dictate the game a little bit more than us. But the first half was better, it was very fluid. I think guys were interchanging positions well. I think the second half, we lost our shape just a little bit."

Thierry Henry on whether it's tough to play in Portland: "I've played in a lot of places, so, yeah, it's alright. I said to you, two years ago we did it to them, we were 3-1 down and playing with 10 men, and we came back 3-3. They did it to us this year, but I think at the end of the day for us it's a fair draw."

Next Match: Sunday March 10th 10:00 PM ET, at San Jose. (TV: ESPN 2)