90min +2: Abang is on for Wright-Phillips.

88 min: Free-kick to the Red Bulls but the ball floats into the beautiful blue sky to parts unknown.

85 min: Graham Parker’s verdict on Wright Phillips:

BWP’s general hold up play for the shape of the team has been very good all afternoon. And McCarty has been excellent. The general shape and performance has been a decent entry in the credit column for Jesse Marsch. New York look organized.

Yep, Marsch has been put in a tough position with the pro-Petke feeling in the crowd but his side have done very little wrong today.

83 min: Perrinelle is booked for a challenge that sees DC United given a free-kick around 35-yards out. But it’s the most inoffensive of deliveries that the Red Bulls almost exploit with a blistering counter-attack that DC manage to snuff out.

81 min: DC United try to get something late. But they have two shots blocked as they attempt to force the ball home. Meaning they don’t force the ball home.

79 min: Sam’s at it again, the most dangerous player on the pitch at the moment. Wright Phillips is turning provider too, playing Sam in with the most casual of through balls. He can’t quite force it past Hamid though.

76 min: DC United have nothing to lose now, and it would be nice for them to really go for it. Whether they have the hustle and skill to do so is another question.

73 min: “Olsen just did his first 360º pirouette of frustration of the afternoon. Best value sideline-cam coach in MLS by a distance,” writes Graham Parker. Graham sent this six minutes ago. I imagine Olsen just made it a 720.

66 min: More subs. Doyle on for Arrieta. I realise goals and fights and alien invasions are more exciting than substitutions but they’re stubbonly refusing to happen at the moment.

64 min: Lovely skill from Wright-Phillips, who controls a long ball and cuts into the left. The DC United defence manage to bustle him off the ball though. Meanwhile, Richard is subbed on for Zizzo. Richards is back after a spell backpacking/playing around Europe.

60 min: The game has been much slower this half. The Red Bulls appear content to play it around wait to pick ip the points. There’s a brief scare as the ball bounces around the edge of the Red Bulls area. It falls to Rolfe, who is very nicely positioned but his well-struck shot is straight at Robles.

57 min: Zizzo finds himself in space around 30 yard out. He has half his team-mates around him waiting for a through ball but goes for the shot himself - because where’s the fun in sharing? It takes a slight deflection that Hamid does well to track, and the ball snuggles into the keeper’s arms.

54 min: Sam has been quiet this half but he does get forward for a cross that’s overhit. The Red Bulls are content to slow things down though and look for the opening. DC United are offering very little threat.

51 min: DC United try a bit of long ball themselves (see Wright Phillips’s goal) but with less success. Because the Red Bulls do things like heading the ball clear.

49 min: Hamid delivers a fairly routine goalkick and gets very angry at himself. He should be kinder to himself. DC United even get a free-kick from it.

46 min: Graham Parker has expanded on his Henry phantom limb comments: “It’s more that every time there’s a stray pass that goes out of play you glance at the spot where he used to be, waiting to see his mime show of exaggerated disappointment…
And when Wright-Phillips scored you expected to see him in the celebration huddle looking stern and explaining why it should have been his fourth.” We all miss him, Graham.

Just in case you were wondering what the Red Bulls goal looked like, it was something like this. With the DC United defence played by John Terry and Matthew Upson:

Half-time: After just a minute of injury time we can pause. A very entertaining half indeed with plenty of chances. Unfortunately for DC United fans the vast majority of them went to the Red Bulls, for whom McCarty was excellent. Ben Olsen says on the touchline that his team need to be “much better”. He’s right too.

45 min: The first-half looks like it will end the way it started as the Red Bulls mass on the edge of the area like some very angry ... bulls. Red ones. McCarty zings a lovely, raking cross in from the right but none of his team-mates can connect.

42 min: Zizzo crosses for Kljestan, who is completely unmarked. Did I say he was completely unmarked? He was but his attempt to nod it down to Wright-Phillips goes horribly wrong.

39 min: Graham Parker writes in with his impressions so far. “Bit of a phantom limb feel to watching Red Bulls without Henry.” He causes pain even when he’s not there?

37 min: Ooof. DC are starting to look very peppy indeed. Pontius wins a corner. He’s not done there though. He then plants his forehead on the resulting cross but it goes straight at Robles.

34 min: Told you DC United were rubbish. They very nearly score. Rolfe is played in and only a sprawling save from Robles denies him. HAving said that, New York then charge up the pitch on the counter-attack and nearly score themselves. Thus the 33rd minute wins the Most Exciting Minute Of The Game Award. Poor old 58th minute thought it had it wrapped up too.

31 min: I think DC United have made it into the Red Bulls half at some point this half. I think.

28 min: Nearly a second for the Red Bulls. A lofted ball comes across the cross and Wright-Phillips leaps but doesn’t head it. Looked like he left it for Sam, but his team-mate can’s exploit the chance.

22 min: A slip sees Sam scamper into the box. He tries to pull it back but Kitchen charges back from somewhere on Statten Island to clear. Great recovery - although he shouldn’t have been in the position to have to make that play in the first place.

19 min: Corner to the Red Bulls. A lovely cross from Sam that plonks on to BWP’s head but it flops into the keeper’s arms. God, he’s rubbish since Henry left. Sam got the ball from a short corner and had A LOT of time to set himself up for that cross.

15 min: Red Bulls swing a ball into the box but after the mildest of alarms, DC clear. I wonder if Thierry Henry can get ESPN2 in London? He’ll be doing Sunday night analysis on Sky Sports right now. In a very nice cardigan.

13 min: Graham Parker has seen the Petke banner too:

11 min: McCarty tries to ping a ball through the middle but it’s cut out. Probably because 17 players were wandering around the middle of the park. It’s nice to see Sam cutting in from the wings, but it would be good to get a bit of play from the wings.

8 min: Ha! As good as New York have been going forward that was some fairly, how shall we put it ... basic defending there. They took two swipes to clear an unthreatening ball into the box. DeLeon’s shot is then deflected as it makes its way towards goal - it’s off a team-mate though so it’s a goalkick to the Red Bulls.

5 min: Oh, and Sam is at it again. Dancing in from the right, he finds Lawrence in the area. It takes an excellent tackle to deprive him of a shot on goal. Instead, it’s a corner that DC United deal with easily enough.

3 min: Red Bulls ping it about nicely to start with and Sam almost wins a corner. I know that’s not exactly a hat-trick but it’s something to build on. There are signs in the crowd being held up at protest of the departure of Mike Petke too. Jesse Marsch is yet to break down in tears.

1 min: And we’re off. Miguel Aguilar is at the ground and ambling about enjoying the afternoon sunshine but he’s not playing and DC United won’t say why. All very mysterious. Maybe he’s scared of a freak polar bear attack. Or maybe he just has a minor hamstring injury. I going for the hamstring.

Graham Parker writes in with some highlights from past meetings. “This one didn’t count in that ‘Previously in the Atlantic Cup’ stat attack. But it did give us the abiding image of Hans Backe’s New York Red Bull reign — the Swede peering warily at the blizzard from the safety of the tunnel, while Ben Olsen rolled in it, possibly topless, yelling, ‘Let’s play! Let’s play!’”

I’m actually supposed to be covering the basketball too. No idea what happens if there’s a massive shock/ a polar bear eats a Kansas player while I’m writing about this game. Actually, no offence to today’s game, but I’d probably just start writing about the bear if a freak ursine attack were to take place.

Past games in this ground (which bear no relation to today’s game because they were played, in the main, by completely different players): five draws, 13 NYRB wins, 13 DC United wins.

Oh, and it looks like Duke just won in the basketball.

Meanwhile, the Guardian’s very own Graham Parker is at Red Bull Arena. To report on the atmosphere. And Tacos. And football. But mainly the tacos:

Ah, yes. There is also a small derby taking place in Spain today. You can follow it here. But we’ve got Bradley Wright-Phillips and they’ve got some no-hoper called Lionel Messi, so you know who to follow. SPOILER ALERT: Barcelona are winning. FURTHER SPOILERS: Lionel Messi is better than BWP. Just. Hang on, Ronaldo’s just equalised I think. I am not doing a liveblog of a liveblog. Sometimes I think there’s too much liveblogging (this from the man who commissioned a liveblog of the NBA All-Star celebrity game).

We also have the DC United team. DC helpfully write their team out – much easier for the lazy journalist to copy and paste – rather than put it in a stupid, fancy graphic (I’m looking at your Red Bulls).

Afternoon! And we have some teams:

And more importantly, a message for anyone who was thinking of drinking 10 bottles of vodka before heading down to today’s game:

If there’s one man you shouldn’t be giving booze to today it’s Red Bulls captain and minor character in Flash Gordon, Dax McCarty. Partly because he’s a professional athlete about to play in a game, and partly because he’s looking for a fight already.

“We have a history with DC United,” McCarty told MLS.com. “We have no history with New York City FC. It’s exciting to talk about and it’s exciting to think about looking towards the future in terms of us playing at Yankee Stadium and them coming to Red Bull Arena. You can feel the excitement building towards that, but whenever it’s DC United, there’s almost an excitement in the hatred towards each other because it’s mutual.”

“They’re ahead of us in the standings,” McCarty added. “I don’t care how early it is, whenever they’re above us in the standings that always pisses me off. We’re looking forward to the game; it’s going to be no different. We expect a great crowd and we expect a very competitive game.”

True. Mutual hatred is the best type of hatred, Dax. Some of the best wars in the world have been caused by mutual hatred. It’s the kind of gory stuff you don’t get when it’s one-sided.

Tom will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s Richard Whittall’s preview:

This is the big derby match of the weekend, with DC United travelling to Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey, to face head coach Jesse Marsch’s team. DC haven’t had the best record there, with their last away win in the MLS regular season against the Red Bulls coming way back in 2011. Of course the 2014 Eastern Conference semi-finals will be on United’s mind, having been knocked out by New York despite finishing first in the East last year.

We don’t know much about either team yet this season. DC put in a fairly straightforward performance in frigid temperatures against Montreal two weeks ago in a 1-0 win, their only MLS match so far this season. The one sad bit of news coming out of the club involves US international Eddie Johnson, with DC United coach Ben Olsen hinting that a heart ailment may put not only the 30-year-old’s entire 2015 season in doubt, but the rest of his career. Meanwhile Luis Silva is still not travelling with the team, but the familiar line up from 2014 will be in show – Perry Kitchen, Chris Pontius, Nick DeLeon and Chris Rolfe will all likely start.

As for New York, who recently sacked their technical director Ricardo Campos, this will provide another opportunity to see how the club is faring under new management and some new faces, including Sacha Kljestan in the hole, Brazilian Felipe Martins and Mike Brella. French defender Ronald Zubar is still questionable with a possible hamstring injury. Their last match was a 1-1 draw with Sporting KC, but the pressure will be on for a convincing win against their archrivals to the south.