HARRISON, NJ — New York Red Bulls star Tim Cahill doesn’t understand why his team isn’t considered the best team of MLS last year.

His Red Bulls won the Supporters’ Shield, the award that goes to the team with the most points at the end of the regular season. For Cahill, that is the true test of which team deserves the recognition.

“I feel that in winning the Supporters’ Shield, we were the most consistent team throughout the whole year,” he said. “We won the hardest thing to win.”

In a conference room at Red Bull Arena, Cahill wore gray sweatpants and a black Red Bulls zip-up jacket while he spoke to a group of reporters in his thick Australian accent.

“With the MLS Cup, you can go through the whole season, just win five in a row, get yourself in the back door [and win the Cup]” he said. “When I joined the club, I told them the thing I wanted most was to win the Supporters’ Shield.”

New York had the best record on the season, but the team was upset in the Eastern Conference Semifinals at the hands of Houston Dynamo.

Though originally from Australia, Cahill spent most of his career playing in England, first with Millwall and then with Everton. In England, the team that wins the league is the team with the most points at the end of the season. There is no postseason to decide who wins the league.

“So I know that if I’m on Manchester United [and we] win the Premier League, there isn’t a raffle where the team that finished fifth, say Fulham, can come play in this round robin and take our trophy off us.”

Cahill is a Designated Player for the Red Bulls, a special classification that allows MLS clubs to sign players who demand more money outside of the strictures of the salary cap. He was brought in to the New York team along with French star and Arsenal legend Thierry Henry.

Cahill will make $3.5 million this year for the Red Bulls. Henry makes over $4 million. While that may not seem like an enormous sum for a professional sports star, a few of the other players on the team make the league’s minimum salary, which was $35,125 in 2013.

Henry shares Cahill’s feelings about the Supporters’ Shield.

“The Supporter’s Shield is such a big thing for us,” said Henry. “Especially for the fans.”

As a Designated Player, Cahill said he feels the pressure to succeed with the Red Bulls, but also to change a culture at the club that he felt had grown complacent.

“Just because you have the best players doesn’t mean you’re going to win anything,” he said. “The proof is in the pudding with the New York Red Bulls and the last 18 years.”

The Red Bulls, founded in 1995 as the New York/New Jersey MetroStars, had never won an MLS Cup or Supporter’s Shield trophy until last season.

Another important goal for Cahill was to change the relationship with the team and its fans.

“I didn’t come here for the money,” he said. “I played in the Premier League all my life, I had loads of options. But I came here for the vision for the club, for helping the league.”

Cahill’s former club, Everton, is known throughout England as a family club, a place where fathers bring their sons to games, and Cahill is determined to recreate that atmosphere at Red Bull Arena.

“Why are [the fans] going to keep coming back and bringing their children?” he asked. “Because they’ve got the feeling and an identity, that they belong to something. And after a game when we walk around the pitch and shake the fans’ hands, and getting to celebrate such a special moment, winning that trophy, I feel that’s what made me who I am today, having that special connection.”

While Cahill believes his team was the best in MLS last year, it should be pointed out that MLS doesn’t play a balanced schedule. In the Barclay’s Premier League, for example, every club plays every opponent twice, once home and once away. The schedule for MLS isn’t balanced, so teams could have tougher schedules than others.

Graham Zusi, the U.S. international who just won MLS Cup with Sporting Kansas City, surprisingly didn’t have a problem with what Cahill said about the importance of the Supporters’ Shield.

“I tend to agree with him,” Zusi said. “That’s something at Kansas City, we put a big emphasis on trying to be the best team over the course of a season. I know that the attention goes to the team that wins the MLS Cup, but at Kansas City we’ve been within a few points [of the Supporters’ Shield] for the last few years. It shows consistency.”

For it to change, Cahill thinks fans need to learn to appreciate the regular-season trophy.

“It’s about an education for the fans,” he said. “There’s so much emphasis in the NBA and the NFL, that the [championship] is such a big event. It’s about an education, to show these fans that we won them the trophy over the course of a season.”