Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Flaws still there

During the Red Bulls conference call, many of the questions talked about overcoming adversity and players who had stepped up and done well to contribute to the club and I couldn't help but shake my head.

No matter how dominant the Red Bulls were at Houston, this team is still flawed. This is still a bad team. We're not talking about a team that was crap all the way through September and everything seemed to come together down the stretch a la Kansas City. We're not talking about a team that was bad at the start of the season, found a way to improve its club little by little and now is surging like Real Salt Lake.

We're talking about a team that, with everything to play for in game number 30, gave up five goals and were blasted out of the water only to back into a playoff spot.

This is a team that yielded the third-highest number of goals in all the league, not just among playoff teams, a team whose fans were not exactly happy with how the season went and not exactly happy with the coach.

One performance, no matter how dominant, does not make up for a season of ineptitude. Yet there was Juan Carlos Osorio and Juan Pablo Angel answering questions about overcoming adversity and finally putting things together as if this team had ever been an elite team.

This New York team had the performance of their lives in Houston and did pull off one of the most stunning upsets in MLS history.

It's still a bad team, one that has a minuscule chance of winning in Salt Lake.

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