second under new ownership -- and that didn't sit well with the Austrian-based energy drink company that owns and operates the team.
"I do believe that we made progress this season, but it was not where we wanted to be," Red Bulls managing director Marc de Grandpre said in a conference call two days following the team's final game in Foxborough, Mass. "We made a promise to our fans to provide the best quality product on the field. Unfortunately we haven't achieved that promise to this point."
As a result Bruce Arena was let go after his first full season as coach and sporting director. And once again, Major League Soccer's New York-based organization is in a state of flux in the offseason.
According to de Grandpre, winning the MLS Cup was the only thing that would have made the 2007 season a success.
"That was the expectation we set forth for the organization," he said. "We fell short."
And now they look forward. A month since their season came to an end following a 1-0 aggregate loss to New England, several names have surfaced, including Chicago Fire coach Juan Carlos Osorio, Chivas USA coach Preki and U.S. under-23 national team coach Peter Nowak, but the Red Bulls are still without a coach.
Of course, the 2007 season started out a lot better than it ended for the Red Bulls. The team brought home Claudio Reyna from Manchester City as the league's second signed designated player after David Beckham, traded for Dave van den Bergh, signed veteran goalkeeper Ronald Waterreus, drafted speedy winger Dane Richards and traded for Clint Mathis.
The Red Bulls posted clean sheets in their first two games -- a scoreless draw at Columbus and a 3-0 win against FC Dallas at home -- but the biggest acquisition of the season was still days away.
On April 17, the Red Bulls announced they had signed the forward they so desperately needed, picking up Juan Pablo Angel on a free transfer from English Premiership side Aston Villa.
After weeks of speculation, the Red Bulls used a second designated player spot, obtained when they traded Amado Guevera to Chivas USA, for the right to get the former Colombian international.
"This is the player we've always wanted," Arena said at the time.
Before Angel would make his debut, the Red Bulls pitched two more shutouts, 1-0 wins against Houston Dynamo and at FC Dallas. Having secured 10 out of a possible 12 points, the Red Bulls enjoyed the best start in club history, had become the first team in league history to open a season with four clean sheets, and there were whispers of a possible MLS Cup contender in the Big Apple.
The Red Bulls gave up their first goal in a wild 3-3 draw at Real Salt Lake and then Angel made his first appearance -- in a 3-1 loss to the Los Angeles Galaxy in the U.S. Open Cup.
Five days later, Angel made his MLS debut in a disappointing 1-0 loss to Colorado at Giants Stadium. The Red Bulls played without Reyna for a third time on the young season because of injury. The 33-year-old's health would prove to be a reoccurring theme in what was a disappointing season for the former U.S. national team captain.
A week later, Angel scored his first MLS goal in a 4-0 rout of the Crew at Giants Stadium. He would go on to shatter the club record for goals in a season with 19, be named MLS All-Star Game MVP, part of the MLS Best XI and was a finalist for the MLS MVP award, eventually given to D.C. United's Luciano Emilio.
"It's been a great learning process for me," Angel said. "I wasn't expecting as much quality as I found here to start with. I found that it is a little bit unfair to compare MLS with the rest of the leagues in the world because this is a [unique league]."
Arena wasn't done wheeling and dealing, though, trading both Todd Dunivant and Marvell Wynne to Toronto in separate deals. For Dunivant, considered one of the top left backs in the league, New York acquired Kevin Goldthwaite, who played sparingly in part because of injury.
For Wynne, the No. 1 overall pick of the 2006 MLS SuperDraft, New York obtained Hunter Freeman, another young fullback who was a regular contributor to the backline when healthy.
But a severe ankle sprain kept Freeman, as well as Waterreus, out of the lineup for nearly two months. New York would also be without Dema Kovalenko for much of the second half of the year because of a pair of injuries.
The Red Bulls limped into the All-Star Break, winning just one of their final six games, closing out the first half with a 1-0 loss to the Revs in a game that saw Angel sent off for a straight red card.
New York won three of its next four games following the All-Star Game, including an epic 5-4 win against David Beckham and the Los Angeles Galaxy in front of 66,237 at Giants Stadium.
Beckham didn't disappoint the onlookers, setting up three goals, but Angel had the game-winner and Jozy Altidore, back from a successful stint with the U.S. team in the FIFA Under-20 World Cup in Canada, scored a pair of second-half goals.
Altidore saw his stock soar in his first full MLS season. As a 17-year-old, he scored three goals for the U.S. in the U-20 World Cup and finished second on the Red Bulls with nine goals. Altidore, who turned 18 on Nov. 6 and earned his first full national team cap against South Africa last month, has drawn interest from oversees, reportedly including Real Madrid.
But de Grandpre said that Altidore is in the team's plans and the Red Bulls have no plans to sell him.
"He's not going anywhere," de Grandpre told the Herald News last month. "I've talked to Jozy and he knows he's a very important part of our future."
But even Altidore would join the walking wounded, a left calf strain caused him to miss several games during the second half of the season.
There would be no momentum from the memorable win against the Galaxy, as the Red Bulls won just one of their next eight games and the defense that was so staunch at the beginning of the season was suddenly leaking goals at an alarming rate.
Despite the second half swoon, the Red Bulls clinched a playoff spot thanks to an FC Dallas win against Columbus Oct. 6. Needing to go into the playoffs with good form, New York beat Kansas City 2-1 in their regular-season home finale before playing the Galaxy to a 1-1 draw Oct. 18.
Despite just two wins in the final 10 regular-season games, the Red Bulls were confident heading into an Eastern Conference Semifinal Series against the rival Revolution.
But the teams played to a scoreless draw at Giants Stadium in the opening leg, meaning the Red Bulls needed a result at Gillette Stadium, where they had gone 12 consecutive games without a win.
The Red Bulls played an inspired first half, but the game changed when Angel was knocked cold on an inadvertent knee to the jaw by Jay Heaps early in the second half. Angel suffered the first concussion of his career and would be taken to an area hospital for observation. Before Arena could bring on a replacement, Taylor Twellman scored the clinching goal.
A promising season ended in stormy Foxborough, with both designated players off the field due to injury as Reyna was taken off in the 26th minute with a right hamstring injury.
"We failed and I emphasize the word 'we,'" Van den Bergh said three days after the loss. "We have 28 players, a coaching staff and we all failed. I think if you ask anybody in this locker room, everyone would say that we had the team which would go places."
So where do the Red Bulls go now? First step, of course, is naming a head coach and a sporting director. By trading Mathis to the Galaxy, the Red Bulls now have a pick in four rounds of next month's MLS SuperDraft and they'll need to sort out Reyna's situation, as well.
Will the club look to buy out his contract? Will Reyna opt for retirement? Even if Reyna returns for the second year of his guaranteed contract, New York needs help in the midfield with Mathis and Joe Vide, who was selected by the San Jose Earthquakes in the expansion draft, gone.
Defensively, the Red Bulls lack a punishing center back and need to figure out its goalkeeping situation. Waterreus announced his retirement after a disappointing season and for a second year running Jon Conway ended the year in net.
"I think I could start somewhere, whether it was here or somewhere else," said Conway, who a 1.10 goals against average in 12 starts. "I think that I've shown that over the course of my time here and my time in the league."
Off the field, the Red Bulls announced last month they bought out AEG's 50 percent interest in the development of Red Bull Park, a soccer-specific 25,000-seat facility in Harrison, N.J., which is expected to be completed in 2009.
While there are many questions that need to be addressed in the coming months, one thing that is certain is that it will once again be a busy offseason for the Red Bulls.
Dylan Butler is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
