Soucie on Soccer

After the disaster that was last night’s Galaxy/Red Bulls match, it became painfully clear.  If you haven’t noticed by now, Red Bull New York is a disgrace to Major League Soccer.  Over the course of the entire season, twenty matches so far, the Red Bulls have earned a whopping point total of…wait for it…ten points.  I’m entirely serious, that total isn’t a joke.  Red Bull New York, on the other hand, is.  Now the question remains: Is it too late for Don Garber to revoke RBNY’s place in the CONCACAF Champions League?

Of the ten points the Red Bull shave earned, only one of them has come in the last two months.  In all competitions, the Bulls have won just three times, two of which came against the only team challenging them for Joke of MLS, San Jose, and one of those wins came in the US Open Cup.  Various pundits have speculated on the future of coach Juan Carlos Osario for weeks, and nothing has happened.  At this point, the season is lost, at least as far as the playoffs are concerned.  But what about the CONCACAF Champions League?

CCL play begins for the Bulls July 30th with leg two of the preliminary round taking place a week later on August 5th.  They face off against W Connection, the champions of the Caribbean Football Union from Trinidad and Tobago.  In the finals of the CFU tournament, W Connection beat last year’s CCL cinderella semifinalists Puerto Rico Islanders 2-1.  Clearly they are not a pushover team.  Given the Red Bulls form this season, they should be worried about this series.  As an MLS fan, I am absolutely terrified.

I don’t even want to think about how bad this could possibly get for both RBNY and MLS.  Last year’s tournament was a fiasco for MLS, with schedule conjestion and unfortunate timing on injuries leading to both MLS teams getting bounced in the preliminary round.  Worst case scenario for the Red Bulls suggests that Joe Public’s 6-1 drubbing of New England could be just the beginning.  Last night’s Galaxy squad is still getting used to playing together, and they made Osario’s squad look like elementary school kids.  What is the CFU champion going to do to them in a game that means a hell of a lot more than three points?

Simply put, if possible, Don Garber should step in and replace Red Bull New York with a team that doesn’t suck.  After all, this is the Champions League.  Sure RBNY “earned” their spot by making it to the MLS Cup final last year, but we all know now that it was a fluke.  How they got past both Houston and Salt Lake is beyond me.  Their form this year couldn’t be further from anything even resembling a champion.  It is going to be ugly.  Worse, MLS is going to look really, really bad.

MLS can’t afford another embarrassment.  If RBNY plays, the odds of an embarrassment are frighteningly high.  An upstart team like Seattle would be a great showcase for MLS in the CCL.   A team like Chicago would be perfect, but their participation in Superliga makes it impossible.  Real Salt Lake would make the most sense logically, since they are the team RBNY beat to get to the MLS Cup.  Unfortunately, RSL’s form hasn’t exactly lit up MLS either.  On the bright side, Salt Lake has not lost since June began, and that includes a win July 11th against CONCACAF power Club America of Mexico.

Sadly, the reality is that we’re left holding on to hope.  It is highly unlikely that MLS would remove RBNY from the slot, even if they could.  Maybe, just maybe, the Bulls will see this tournament as a chance to salvage their season.  Just making it to the group stage, let alone playing well in it, would be the one shining light in a season that has otherwise gone about as well as the Hindenberg.  We’ll have to wait and see.  And hope.  Don’t forget to hope, because RBNY needs all the help they can get.