Bruce Arena has seen an improvement from the New York Red Bulls from day to day, from game to game, since he took over as head coach Aug. 7. But that hasn't translated into wins, or even moved them closer to a playoff berth.
When they take the field Saturday night against the red-hot Chicago Fire, the Red Bulls will be two points behind fourth-place Kansas City with three games to play.
Impossible? No. Difficult? No doubt.
"I'll be honest with you. It's likely that this thing is going to go down to the last day," Arena said. "We hope we can get better. I think we've improved. We're actually improving in every game. Even though we don't have the results, we're improving. But there's no point in saying we're improving -- we need to get points. Whether we play poorly or we play well, we need to get some points."
Red Bulls captain Amado Guevara, who scored twice in a 4-3 loss to D.C. United last Saturday, doesn't want to hear about improvement. He wants to hear about victories.
"I don't like that question because we didn't get the points," Guevara said after the loss at RFK Stadium. "Thank God Kansas City tied. That's some good news at least."
In order to make the final game of the regular season, a home game against the Wizards, meaningful, the Red Bulls need to start getting some points. The Red Bulls have lost four of their last five games and have just one win -- a 1-0 victory against the Columbus Crew -- in their last six games. Against D.C., the Red Bulls gave up three goals in the final half hour.
"One thing that was obvious to me when I came in is that we have a very poorly conditioned team," Arena said. "You see at the end of these games they break down. They can't think because they're fatigued and that's something we know we can't deal with now. It's something we have to deal with in the offseason and certainly next year."
The Red Bulls consider their game against Chicago a must-win, which won't be easy. The Fire is the hottest team in MLS right now, having lost just once in their last 13 games. They've won six of their last seven games, including their fourth U.S. Open Cup title, beating the Galaxy 3-1 on Wednesday night.
Against the top three teams in the Eastern Conference, the Red Bulls have a 0-6-5 record, including an 0-2-1 mark vs. the Fire. A Red Bulls loss and a Kansas City win against Chivas USA puts New York five points out of the playoffs with two games to play.
"If we figure out how to put it together for 90 minutes and we can defend for 90 minutes and the back four can do better, then we can definitely be in the playoffs," Carlos Mendes said. "We just need to concentrate more and we can definitely be in the playoffs. We need to concentrate better and play for 90 minutes."
Dylan Butler is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
