Clint Mathis knew what was at stake had the New York Red Bulls found a way to finally beat the New England Revolution at Gillette Stadium. Thanks to the Chicago Fire's stunning upset of Supporters' Shield winners D.C. United, the Eastern Conference Championship would have been played at Giants Stadium.
But on Saturday night, Mathis and the Red Bulls were lamenting their missed opportunities, agonizing over another first-round exit following a 1-0 loss to the Revolution.
"I never met anybody in this business to be excited about losing so of course I'm disappointed," Mathis said. "Our next game would have been at home and we set up ourselves as best we could to go to the finals."
Instead the Fire will take on the Revs on Thursday night at Gillette Stadium with the winner headed for the MLS Cup Final at RFK Stadium on Nov. 18. The Red Bulls are now left to clean out their lockers at their training facility at Montclair State University and start to prepare for the 2008 season.
"Eight months of work for this and now it's over," Dema Kovalenko said. "We've got to start all over again. It's disappointing."
It wasn't a topic of conversation in the locker room after the game, but the Red Bulls players will no doubt realize in the coming days how close they were to the possibility of the first MLS Cup appearance in club history.
In three regular-season meetings with Chicago, the Red Bulls were unbeaten and were victorious in two games at Giants Stadium.
"It would have been great," Jeff Parke said about the prospects of hosting the Eastern Conference final. "I wasn't really looking into that, but in the back of your mind you know if you get a win out of this you can go home. It's going to last for a while."
As disappointing as the 1-0 defeat in the second leg was, the Red Bulls know they put themselves in a bad position by playing a scoreless draw in the opening leg at Giants Stadium.
"I think the biggest thing, to be honest, is we (didn't score) a goal at home," Kovalenko said. "We have to play better at home, we've got to score at home."
The loss at Gillette Stadium extends the Red Bulls' winless streak in Foxborough to 13 consecutive games dating back to June 29, 2002. New York has now dropped all three series it played against New England and they've found some wild ways to lose there as well.
In 2005, the Red Bulls took a 1-0 lead into the second leg and went in front 2-0, before the Revs scored three goals in the final 16 minutes in a stirring comeback. And in July, a back pass from Carlos Mendes to Jon Conway resulted in a 40-yard own goal, handing a 2-1 win to New England.
Perhaps the club is cursed. They haven't advanced in the playoffs or won a game at Gillette Stadium since Octavio Zambrano was fired after the 2002 season.
Could it be the Curse of Oz?
"We've been unfortunate. Two years ago we (gave up) three goals and the own goal this year," Seth Stammler said. "It's just unfortunate not to get the goal today, but it's certainly not a curse."
Dylan Butler is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
