Coach Jason Kreis was reasonably pleased with the way RSL played in its nasty 1-1 draw with Chivas de Guadalajara at Rio Tinto Stadium last night, except that the red card shown to defender Jamison Olave just before halftime “ruined some things” he hoped his team could accomplish.

“Our guys didn't have a whole lot of letdown,” Kreis said. “I think they wanted to make a statement in front of everyone ... that we're hard workers, that we don't have much quit in us. We showed a lot of what we can expect from the final few matches.”

Not everybody was so enthused.

Midfielder Will Johnson seemed particularly downcast about what the performance portends for the rest of the season.

While forward Fabian Espindola expressed confidence that RSL can win its last three regular-season Major League Soccer games and reach the playoffs — he scored RSL's only goal, in the 16th minute — Johnson worried about blowing the lead and the injuries suffered by midfielders Javier Morales and Ned Grabavoy.

“We've played good stretches of games all year long, and we've failed to put it together for 90 minutes,” he said. “And that's the case again tonight. Obviously, there's a lot of positives you can take out, but at the end of the day, we had a lead and we gave it up. If we do that one more time this season, our season is 100 percent over.”