ORLANDO, Fla. – Jason Kreis is not normally given to story-telling, but he has spent some time with his Orlando City SC team this week with a very important tale ahead of Sunday’s make-or- break game with Montreal Impact (1 pm ET; ESPN in the US, TVA Sports in Canada).
With the Lions’ hopes of reaching the postseason hanging by a thread with three games to go, the head coach is well aware only a win, realistically, will do in their penultimate home game of the season.
And he has gone all the way back to his 2008 and 2009 seasons in charge of Real Salt Lake to find a suitable analogy for their current situation – and a real-life inspiration story.
Kreis took the Claret-and-Cobalt to the playoffs for the first time in 2008, and went on to the conference final. He improved on that with an even more dramatic campaign the following year, with a variety of results going RSL's way on the final day to get them in to the knockout stage, when they went on to beat LA on penalties in MLS Cup.
That is the message he wants his men to absorb before kickoff against Montreal. In particular, the 2009 season was a rare situation as Salt Lake scraped into the playoffs with a losing record and needed four last-day results to go their way.
First, they had to beat Colorado, and have a big turnaround in goal difference, to get above their Rocky Mountain rivals. They won 3-0. Then they had to hope each of Dallas, D.C. United and Toronto all failed to win. Dallas and Toronto both lost and D.C. were held 2-2 at Kansas City. That never-say-die spirit is what Kreis is now hoping to engender in Orlando.
“Yes, I’ve told the players about 2009, and about 2008,” he explained. “In 2008, it was my second year of coaching there and we made the playoffs on the very last day. There were a couple of results that went our way to get us in there and we went all the way to the conference final. Arguably, we were the better team in the final, but we lost 1-0.
“The next year was an inconsistent year. We made the playoffs on the last day again. I remember there were three teams that did something for us to get us into the playoffs on that last day, because I sent each of those coaches a bottle of wine! That’s the experience I have related to the players. There is still hope. There is a lot of hope – if we take care of our business.”
Heading into the weekend, Orlando sit in eighth in the East, one point behind seventh-place New England and five back of D.C. for the conference's sixth and final playoff spot.
Kreis insists his players don’t need any extra pumping up for what should be a raucous home game against an Impact team they have already beaten twice this season, both home and away.
“I don’t know if this one’s about confidence or just about knowing exactly where we are,” he added. “Our backs are very clearly against the wall. We need three points. So I don’t think we’re needing to look for extra confidence or extra motivation or anything else. I think it’s all there for the players, and they know it.
“For me, what I think sets things up very nicely is that this game is very clear. We need to handle this one game at a time and only one game at a time. Thinking about how many points you need, etc, etc, that’s no good. The conversation is very, very simple.”
Despite two wins over the Impact this year, Kreis is well aware they are still a dangerous team, even if Mauro Biello doesn’t risk Didier Drogba on Camping World Stadium’s artificial turf. And he has laid out a very clear plan for his men.
“Montreal are a very good team in transition," he said. "They have very talented attackers that we need to be mindful of all the time. There’s [Ignacio] Piatti, Drogba, if he plays, and [Dominic] Oduro with his pace; it’s a team that can be really dangerous on the break. So we need to be careful with that. We cannot get stretched out.
“We have to take the [0-0] performance we had two days ago [at Toronto] and improve on it just a little bit with what we do on the ball. Have a little bit more confidence to take a bit more risk going forward at home, and if we do that, we’ll be in a good place.”
The message has certainly been heard loud and clear by Orlando’s players, with Brazilian striker Julio Baptista repeating the mantra of single-minded focus for Sunday.
“I think the players know what’s needed at this stage,” Baptista said. “For [Toronto], a draw is very good; we need to get the three points. It’s really, really important for us. We need to play very, very hard and we need to win. We know the opportunities will come, but we need to take them.”
