HARRISON, N.J. -- Despite being eliminated from the MLS playoffs Sunday in the second leg of the Eastern Conference championship, the 2015 season was an "overwhelming success" for the New York Red Bulls, according to coach Jesse Marsch.
Marsch was hired to replace Mike Petke as the club's manager in January. The move drew the ire of Red Bulls fans, as Petke was a local product who had played for the team when they were called the MetroStars in the late 1990s and early 2000s before finishing his career with the Red Bulls in 2010.
In 2013, he became coach and, at the time of his firing, he was the most successful one in Red Bulls/MetroStars history, having won the Supporters Shield during his first season in charge and coming within a goal of an MLS Cup final berth last season.
But Marsch quickly won over his critics with a young, retooled roster that played an attractive, high-energy style even without marquee stars such as Thierry Henry and Tim Cahill, both of whom left the club at the end of the 2014 campaign.
"This is no question a successful season," Marsch said Sunday after the Red Bulls beat the Crew 1-0, but lost the series 2-1 on aggregate following last week's 2-0 defeat in Columbus. "I think we were a good enough team this year to have a real legitimate shot to win MLS Cup and I think we proved that throughout the season and throughout the playoffs."
With a bit of luck, they might have gone further. Two minutes after Anatole Abang scored in second-half stoppage-time, Red Bulls' leading scorer Bradley Wright-Phillips put a header off the post. It was the hosts' last chance of the match.
"We made a really good push at the end of the game, it's almost ... it's painfully unbelievable how that game ends," Marsch said. "In every way this has been a magical season and you know, it was an inch, two inches, I don't know -- you tell me -- how far it was away from having a real chance to be something even more special."
Marsch said that inevitably roster changes loom during the winter, as they always do. But he likes the foundation he and sporting director Ali Curtis have laid in what is the first year of a long-term project to content for titles. The club has made just one MLS Cup appearance -- 2008 -- in their 20-season history, and have yet to win the league's most prestigious prize.
"We are in the first year of our process," he said. "We're very hopeful to keep this group together as much as possible and continue the process next year. We want everything that we went through this year to make us stronger for next year.
"Our goal is to put ourselves in these kinds of games and situations every year, to grow every year, to invest in our youth and youth academy, and create something that has such a big identity that everyone in the community wants to attach themselves to it," Marsch added.
"The first year, in that sense, has been an overwhelming success. If we can make this kind of progress, year in and year out, we'll create something that I think can be really special."