By J Hutcherson - WASHINGTON, DC (Sep 12, 2011) US Soccer Players -- It's easy enough to blame things on Major League Soccer's peculiar version of parity. Why the need for the qualifier? Because MLS has managed to create a system that doesn't necessarily reward taking advantage of the rules that allow clubs to spend on talent. That would be the New York Red Bulls, once again doing just enough to barely keep themselves in the picture.
On Saturday night, that was trying to manage a game against the expansion Vancouver Whitecaps that seemed to be beyond them after the opening half. New York looked like a team that was almost there. Passing moves almost fell for them, the defense almost held up. Instead, they were down a goal and a man with halftime to consider their situation. That couldn't have been a lot of fun.
To the Red Bulls' credit, they did regroup, get an equalizer, and ultimately a point from a game that early own looked and felt like a disaster. Yet it's that same 'fight for the equalizer' mentality that's marked and marred their season.
New York and Chicago are tied for the MLS lead in draws at 15 each. New York has won all of six games, 33 points from 27 games played good for the 11th slot in the playoff standings. Ten teams get in, and right now the Red Bulls aren't one of them. DC United holds that 10th slot, on 25 games played to New York's 27. There's no easy for New York anymore, so their relative strength of schedule doesn't really tell us much of anything. They can give the League's elite team a game, while showing themselves unable to take advantage against teams that are out of ideas, lack the personnel, and shouldn't be in the conversation with New York.
MLS parity at work, or just a team that can't seem to get it together? Though the parity point is a favorite, New York looks like it belongs in the latter category. Call it what you will, but any team that starts treating draws like statements of purpose - a string of moral victories that still only count one more point than a loss in the standings.
You see this in how the Red Bulls respond when they do just enough not to lose. The imagery is of a team up against it, pushing for that statement goal that puts their mark on 90 minutes of soccer. Yet it's still just a point, an open invitation for troubled teams to shake that off and pass New York in the table.
Sporting Kansas City, a team that once upon a time had the worst record in the Eastern Conference, now top the division. They did it through a lopsided schedule that had them stuck on the road while their stadium was completed and now rewards them with home date after home date. Remember, this was a team talking about what a mistake it was to stay on the road for the opening ten weeks of the season. They lost five games in a row, but the East cooperated. With none of the Eastern contenders capable of creating space at or near the top of the table, here came Sporting.
With that in mind, New York doesn't have a lock on the team that most missed an opportunity. There are several candidates in that category, all trying to take the top spot in the East and rightly so. The Eastern Conference, as bad as it is compared to the West, has been unable to create an obvious definition for a good or bad team.
Chicago, New England, and Toronto are at the bottom of the table, but all within seven points of a playoff slot. New York has trashed a season that started full of promise, yet they're seven points the top of the table. What this creates are multiple opportunities for every Eastern team to change the story of their season.
Yet New York remains the team with the most to lose. Once again, that's based on expectation. We're talking about MLS New York/New Jersey, a product that's never lived up to the hype.
This season was supposed to be about a Supporters' Shield, finally producing an Eastern Conference club that could push back against the dominance of the West during the regular season. It wasn't lost on anybody that the East had become a regular season joke, made even worse when Western wildcard teams playing in the Eastern bracket won the last two MLS Cups. This is the Conference of DC United and Columbus, clubs that have shown they can dominate this League en route to a title.
New York is supposed to be the next chapter in that story, selling a new model for Major League Soccer on how to build an elite squad. Instead, they're a team that would gladly take that '08 playoff run where they barely qualified and ended up losing a final. That justified a season in the classic MLS way. Get into the playoffs and let that mini-tournament prove how good or bad you really are.
Once again, this is MLS. It's a League where a playoff run that ends with an MLS Cup trumps the Supporters' Shield regardless of how that club managed to get into the postseason. New York's problem is that they're far from the only MLS team with the personnel and opportunity to tell that story.
Except this is a team with a dollar amount attached to it, a payroll that dwarfs all other MLS clubs but Los Angeles. That makes the Galaxy the only meaningful competition, and it's one where the Red Bulls are getting trounced.
Comments, questions, solutions to problems that have yet to present themselves. Please, tell me all about it.
