Monday, August 27, 2007
Middle of the Road
Mediocre. Also-ran. Mid-table. These adjectives adequately describe the Red Bulls after their lost week on the road against the Eastern Conference leaders. New York is 2-3 over its last five matches, while DC United is 5-0 and New England is 3-2. Playing the way they are, there's little hope that NY will catch either foe, and a fifth-straight first-round playoff exit seems likely. One wonders whether Red Bull will allow Bruce Arena to keep his job without advancing in the playoffs, which would start the NY turnover parade for another year.... and so on... and so on...
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2 comments:
Whats your take on the chances of Arena being fired? I hear that the front office needs to see improvement for them to hang onto him. And without a playoff series win there will be no improvement.
If they do make a change, That would probably cause a dominoe effect of 5 or so people being shipped out, as the rest of the staff is Bruce's boys as well. Maybe that gets us off the Reyna hook as well...
Anyways, if they do ship out the Americans, I'm interested to hear your take on what the change in philosophy and personel they bring in will be. Will this finally be the time that Red Bull takes the "safety" off and starts pouring the massive cash we know they have into the club.
Next year will be a huge year, as it is the leadup to RBP, so they are deffinatley going to need to make some noise.
Thanks for the comment, Carter. The Metros/Red Bulls have lost in the first round of the playoff for four straight years. By that lens, improvement means breaking through and getting to the conf semis, which NY has done only once before (2000) in its history.
Considering MLS' salary cap and rules regarding foreign players, I'm not sure how "the safety" can be taken off more than it already can.
MLS can't (and shouldn't) become the NASL over a 24-month period. The attendance and ratings are there yet. Henry, Messi, Kaka, and Ronaldinho will be not coming anytime soon. That said, with more signings like Denilson (FCD), the league will continue to take more baby steps...
As for next year being a huge year, I'd argue that this year was supposed to be a huge year, since RBP was supposed to open in '08 (now '09).
As I've preached here, it'll take some good, old-fashioned marketing dollars to get people to care about this club. Perhaps some of Aug. 18th's 66K will return on Saturday for Chicago. Perhaps.
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