Nowak: Fighting Spirit Necessary To End Cold Streak

A slow start to the 2012 MLS regular season has the Philadelphia Union on the ropes, but head coach Piotr Nowak believes that the team is mired in a cold streak that has an end in sight.

"You have some cold streaks during the season, but it's tough to start the season like that," Nowak said at his press conference today. "When you start the season 0-3 it starts looking a little different."

"In our league you go through the hot and cold streaks and sometimes you catch a break here and there."

Nowak attributed the switch from a cold streak to a hot streak to a team's fighting spirit, a phrase he used often throughout the press conference.

"We have to go back to our fighting spirit," Nowak said. "Finding a good balance between playing soccer and fighting... we're going to find our rhythm of playing and this is what I think we're trying to find out how to do right now."

"What we can guarantee is that we'll fight for our lives... fighting like this is fighting for the playoffs. Every game needs to be played in a certain fashion... I think the most important thing is to inject the confidence, the fighting spirit."

The former MLS Cup winner, as a player and a coach, emphasized that the team still believed it was close to finding a positive result as part of the reclaimation of its fighting spirit.

"We can play as a team, we can fight for each ball and each other and show at the end of the day, that if we stop leaking goals, we can win"