by ERIC GIACOMETTI

Staff Writer

One would have expected more urgency from the New York Red Bulls this weekend against Columbus, particularly with playoff positioning in the balance. As the 2014 regular season winds down, however, it seems some within the New York locker room may have taken their foot off the gas pedal.

After locking up a playoff spot courtesy of a Houston Dynamo loss, the Red Bulls concluded their three-game home stand in a loss against the Columbus Crew. With playoff seeding still very much up for grabs, the home side was thoroughly outclassed and suffered their first defeat at Red Bull Arena since May.

For a side that seemed to be peaking at just the right time, their performance was very much out of character. Within the New York clubhouse, players and coaches alike struggled to pinpoint exactly what went wrong. In light of guaranteeing playoff soccer for a fifth straight season, complacency was certainly a topic of conversation in the Red Bull locker room.

“Yeah, absolutely,” reflected head coach Mike Petke. “I didn’t think so before the game, and not because of their actions am I perhaps saying this. But by the result, you have to think about it. There could be millions of reasons for this result, and that could be one of them. Maybe after making the playoffs we sat back and took too big of an exhale.”

While Petke presumably wasn’t speaking literally, there was a noticeable exhale from team captain Thierry Henry midweek when asked how he felt about locking up a playoff spot.

“Whooo. That’s my reaction. It was a long season. It’s still not over, but obviously clinching the playoffs is something we were looking for,” he said. “I mean, we’re happy… It was kind of a good feeling, to be honest. It was such a long fight. We still have to fight, don’t get me wrong, but we’re finally in.”

Henry wasn’t alone in that sentiment. Fellow strike partner Bradley Wright-Phillips still touched on the importance of the Columbus match, but echoed a similar sentiment of relief prior to Sunday’s loss. “We’re a bit more relaxed,” the league-leading goal scorer admitted. “We know now that we can play for a higher place in the table. But now that we know we’re there, we can relax a bit.”

After the match, winger Lloyd Sam refused to attribute their poor performance to the team’s contentment, instead pointing to the Crew’s stellar performance for the lopsided result.

“We went into the game with the right attitude, but they were just better than us today,” Sam stated.

In fairness, Henry also repeated the refrain that Columbus were simply “better than us” in his postgame comments as well.

While some may have taken the chance to breath, others believed that notion to be unacceptable. Following the loss, goalkeeper Luis Robles was having trouble wrapping his brain around the concept.

“Someone said that?” queried an incredulous Luis Robles. “I don’t want to attribute it to that, but it is surprising. Sure, we made the playoffs, but as far as the weight goes? The weight stays until the end of the season, regardless of where we sit [in the table]. Until we play that last game—whether that’s MLS Cup or the end of the regular season—that’s when the weight goes. So I guess I’m kind of surprised that people say that because as long as there are more games to play, the gravity of the situation doesn’t change at all. That’s just my perspective.”