East Rutherford, NJ (My Sportsbook) - When the Kansas City Wizards travel to New Jersey to take on the New York Red Bulls in a Major League Soccer fixture on Saturday night, the outcome won't have much barring on the league's crowded playoff picture.
The Eastern table's bottom two teams have no realistic shot at making the second season and are mainly just playing for pride and jobs for next year.
The Red Bulls (4-16-4) are actually on a two game winning streak, doubling the output of their first 22 games in the past two. Both wins have come since interim head coach Richie Williams took over for Juan Carlos Osorio, who resigned.
The most recent result was a 1-0 victory over defending MLS Cup champion Columbus last weekend.
"Very happy to get another win, we haven't had a whole lot this year so I'm proud of the guys," Williams said. "Great job to work hard for the second straight time, it is a great feeling for all of us and we are going to continue to work hard and try to continue to win games."
Dane Richards scored the game's lone goal on a breakaway from his defensive third after a short corner by the Crew was blocked.
The Red Bulls are hoping to string some more wins together to make their record a little more respectable by season's end.
"Of course you don't want to be remembered as the worst team in MLS history, so that was something we obviously talked about," Williams said. "That's past us now and we are going to continue. The other thing was, we talk about streaks or even in New York history, you don't want to be known as having the least amount of points, the main thing was we wanted to go out there and play. Play for pride, play for each other, play for the team and show everyone that our record is not indicative of how well we play. We are just happy to keep getting wins and continue on the same stuff."
The Wizards (6-11-6) aren't in much better shape, winning just one of their last nine league fixtures while being shut out in five of their last six. The most recent was a 1-0 loss at D.C. United on Wednesday. K.C. actually took the play to United in the first half, but were unable to capitalize before the home side earned a late goal for the victory.
"Definitely in the first half we drove the game being away from home, which is a really good thing," K.C. interim coach Peter Vermes said. "That was a real positive for us. And then the amount of chances we created, not just the amount but the quality of chances we created were excellent so from that perspective, very positive. The negative is the fact that we should have put one of those away and that would have taken some pressure of us and maybe that would have opened them up a little more. But they did a good job sort of locking down and in the second half especially."
The Wizards will be without Matt Besler because of yellow card accumulation on Saturday, while midfielder Kevin Souter and Adam Cristman are our with injuries. Midfielder Matt Marquess is also listed as doubtful with a knee strain.
New York forward Juan Pablo Angel, midfielders MF Albert Celades, Seth Stammler and Sinisa Ubiparipovic, and defenders Kevin Goldthwaite and Mike Petke are all listed as questionable with injuries.
