as well as being in good humor, judging from the laughter on the practice field the day before Wednesday's game at New England.
With their U.S. Open Cup game postponed by stormy weather conditions last Wednesday in Chicago, the Revolution are the last team the Wizards played. The 1-1 draw at home on July 29 broke a seven-game losing streak, but did not put the Wizards back on the winning trail.
Kansas City was only seconds from defeating the Revolution, but Steve Ralston's stoppage-time goal salvaged a point for New England. That makes Wednesday's game a little bit more important.
"Tomorrow night is a big game for us especially after we played them at home and lost a couple of points when we gave up that goal late," forward Davy Arnaud said after training on Tuesday. "It's the kind of game that you need to get points from."
Because the Wizards have had a recent game against New England, interim coach Brian Bliss anticipates that his squad will have to do the same things it did in the July 29 encounter.
"Shutting off the services to (Taylor) Twellman and to (Clint) Dempsey from wide positions, whether it's from the right-hand side or the left-hand side," Bliss said. "(But) predominately coming from their right to our left. We need to address that."
And another goal or two would give the Wizards a cushion in case New England is successful at their kind of attack.
"I think we can generate chances because we did that against them (in the recent game)," Bliss said. "Now it's putting a couple more of those away and taking away a couple of theirs by shutting down the flank stuff."
The game against New England begins a stretch of five games in 11 days. Included is next Monday's fourth-round U.S. Open Cup game against the Chicago Fire. If the Wizards win that game, they will wind up playing eight games in the remainder of August. The U.S. Open Cup quarterfinal will be Aug. 23 at New England, if Kansas City defeats Chicago.
"That was a big disappointment in the Open Cup, not being able to play," Bliss said. "I don't want to say our guys were breathing fire, no pun intended, but they were ready to play."
But the postponement gave the Wizards a little more time to recuperate. After the Open Cup game was postponed, the Wizards had the next three days off before returning to training Sunday.
After New England left Kansas City with the draw, they won a U.S. Open Cup game last Wednesday against the Rochester Rhinos in a penalty kick shootout and drew against Chivas USA on Sunday.
The break, Bliss hopes, gave his squad a little time to heal.
"(The break) hopefully regenerated some batteries physically and, more so I think, psychologically just to get away from the game because there are not many places around the world that go from Feb. 1 to Oct. 15 without any kind of a break," Bliss said. "That takes its toll on you both physically and mentally."
Now the Wizards are looking forward to improving their place in the Eastern Conference standings. Kansas City has 21 points and is in fifth place, six points behind second-place New England.
"I think the guys are ready to get back on it and get these last 12 games started," Arnaud said. "I feel like we have something to prove in these last 12 games and that we are a better team than we have shown."
While going through the last eight games winless, the Wizards have not fallen out of the playoff race. With D.C. United running away with the Eastern Conference, first place seems out of reach. But second place, and the accompanying home-field advantage in the first round of the playoffs, is not out of reach.
"Other teams have been kind of doing us favors while we have had our bad run," Arnaud said. "Having said that we have to take advantage of that now. We have to go and get results now. We don't have any time to be losing games like we have been."
With so many games remaining in August, the Wizards could make up some ground quickly.
"As bad we've been results wise, we're still in this knowing that we haven't played our best soccer yet, Bliss said. "We're still not at a point where we're looking at somebody else to beat somebody else and asking a favor from somebody here or there."
Robert Whitman is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
