By late Saturday evening, the fourth-place Kansas City Wizards will likely have one of two feelings concerning their season's plight and the games upcoming four nights later: either hopeful and positive, or hoping and praying.
No, Saturday's Eastern Conference matchup against current third-place club Chicago Fire is not do-or-die, but it is do-or-dare concerning the Wizards' playoff future.
"It's a must-win for us. There's really no way around that. There are a number of reasons for us to have to win this game. You've got the playoff picture -- a team that's ahead of us in the standings, teams below us clipping our heels -- and we want to get a good rhythm at home," said veteran center back Jimmy Conrad. "If we are going to make a stand, this is the game to do it."
And the rest of the locker room feels similarly.
"The guys in the locker room, we just talked about [Saturday being the biggest match of the year]. I still think the last four or five games have been extremely big," said forward Josh Wolff. "The fact that the results haven't gone our way [always] makes the next game a big game."
Winless in their last five games -- including a winless September -- despite having been in position to win every one, Kansas City has felt the razor-like sting of what could have been.
"It's frustrating. We deserved to come out of there with at least a point," said left winger Davy Arnaud of last Sunday's 2-1 loss to the L.A. Galaxy. "And that's been the case on more than one occasion in our last five games -- we've deserved more than we've gotten. At the end of the day, it's about getting results. We still control what we do, and we have three games left, two important home games."
Controlling what you can is what comes when the team behind you trying to steal the last playoff slot is within three points with a game in hand, and when the two teams ahead also have a game in hand.
"We have to go out and control what we can control ... [We need] to take it upon ourselves here at home to assert ourselves in our [conference] and make a run at the playoffs," said Wolff.
There are signs of possible resuscitation for the Wizards in that they have beaten Chicago twice this season (including their last triumph on the campaign, a 3-0 win at Arrowhead Stadium on Aug. 19). It will also be a new month come Saturday, and Conrad and company know the key to winning.
"We have to go out and concentrate on one play at a time. It really does come down to that," said Conrad. "As long as we can apply that concentration at the right time and make the plays that need to be made, then I think we'll come out on top.
"We know it's a really thin line [between winning and losing] and that we have to do the little things to switch it back in our favor."
Win Saturday against the Fire and the Wizards will gain some control of their fate; tie or lose and they hope and pray as they watch Wednesday night as the game their main rivals have in hand is made up.
Robert Rusert is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
