Red Bulls Have Problems, Natives Are Restless

One part of New Jer­sey at the moment is quiet, steel bars are assem­bled, con­crete lower deck is in place while the only noise is the small com­muter train, NJ Tran­sit trains as well as the Amtrak trains are going across. Mean­while out­side of Har­ri­son, NJ the swamps of the Mead­ow­lands includ­ing all of North­east, NJ and in New York City there are major grum­blings going on. O.k. I’m being kind to all of you. Every­one is angry and dis­gusted with the way the club has played and the way Juan Car­los Oso­rio is man­ag­ing the squad.

I have to admit that higher expec­ta­tions have already came when the club was going to the Qual­i­fy­ing Round of the CONCACAF Cham­pi­ons League, US Open Cup tour­ney & a pos­si­ble return to the MLS Cup final. Since the start of the sea­son it has looked to be bleak very fast. At home they have won only once in three matches, but there was a poten­tial of hav­ing at least nine points at home if they didn’t lose the lead late against New Eng­land in sec­ond half stop­page time and going into the 90th minute against DC United, not only did they lose the lead, they lost the match. Five points dropped at home while on the road they haven’t scored a goal let alone get a win, only a draw at Houston.

Once again for­ma­tion changes with every oppo­nent and with the addi­tions of Car­los John­son of Costa Rica & Alfredo Pacheco of El Sal­vador and sup­pos­edly with a refo­cused Jorge Rojas to run the mid­dle, it seems that those expec­ta­tions have become night­mares. Even though they earned a win on Wednes­day, April 29th at the San Jose Earth­quakes in their US Open Cup qual­i­fier (and now they will be on the road in DC United on May 20th for the 3rd round spot) they still laid an egg in the Home Depot Cen­ter against the Galaxy in a sta­dium where they have had plenty of success.

If it’s not the mid­field help­ing out Juan Pablo Angel, then occa­sion­ally it’s the for­ma­tions that Head Coach Juan Car­los Oso­rio has formed. When­ever the club has been sit­u­ated into a 4–5-1, that means Angel is the loan striker where Macoumba Kandji is pushed back into the mid­field as a LW-Midfielder. Once again no mat­ter how many times I have said this to any­one, Kandji is not a mid­fielder he is a player that needs to be up top with Angel who can score and he can play the ball as a hold­ing for­ward while giv­ing service.

The mes­sage boards have already been filled and the sup­port­ers have voiced their dis­plea­sure of the club and assume that Red Bull only cares about their club in Aus­tria and their Motocrossed rid­ers and skate­board­ing trick­sters. The only rea­son that Red Bull Arena is being built is no longer about the foot­ball. It’s about those motocross & skate­board­ing ath­letes and not for this MLS side. While it’s easy to get all worked up and assume those things, what most are for­get­ting is that the damned rules of the league with their extreme salary cap and dif­fer­ent rules to acquire play­ers has really ham­strung the Red Bull Cor­po­ra­tion in mak­ing their New York club into a con­tin­ued and con­sis­tentsuc­cess from the start. When things are going bad, the assump­tions and the made up excuses of “they don’t care about the club” com­ments pop up. I don’t really believe Red Bull paid all this money to build a sta­dium for an area that has been starv­ing for a real home and get out of the cash drain­ing Mead­ow­lands NJSEA to instead have Red Bull bik­ers & skate­boards fill­ing up their own sta­dium instead of for the club.

As of right now the lynch mob is out for the head of Juan Car­los Oso­rio. They have said they want him gone right now. They are tired of the for­ma­tion changes and bring­ing in play­ers that either don’t work, or being put out of posi­tion. I think there is a cer­tain player that is miss­ing from this squad and at the moment he is in Texas play­ing for FC Dal­las. Dutch­man Dave van den Bergh who wanted out of New York because of fam­ily rea­sons wanted to be closer to his wife’s fam­ily & his own fam­ily in Dal­las and his son who needed spe­cial treat­ment for a cer­tain type of med­ical con­di­tion. Is it pos­si­ble that his leav­ing might have caused the scale to tip in the wrong direc­tion for the Red Bulls? You hope this isn’t the case but I have to say that if Oso­rio can’t get wins by the Hous­ton Dynamo home match on Sat­ur­day, May 16th. I have to go with the mad vil­lagers and say it’s time to try some­one else.

But let me add some­thing to this story. Isn’t it ironic that both final­ists in last sea­sons MLS Cup are hav­ing major trou­bles right now. The Crew lost their coach to Seat­tle just as the Red Bulls lost Van den Bergh in a trade to FC Dal­las. Can the ship be righted? It’s pos­si­ble, but as of right now in the tri-state area the roars of anger and dis­gust are loud and clear. These next four home matches are cru­cial for Red Bull New York. If some­thing pos­i­tive doesn’t hap­pen then Osorio’s head will be rest­ing on the chop­ping block.