James Sands: “You get a little bit desperate when your team is not winning.” (Noah K. Murray-USA TODAY Sports)

BRONX — With its regular season down to a precious three games, New York City FC needed to right the ship, given that it had won only once in its last nine games.

After clinching an MLS playoff spot with a 2-0 home win over the lowly Chicago Fire Wednesday night, City could breathe a little sigh of relief.

“You get a little bit desperate when your team is not winning,” midfielder James Sands said. “And it’s been awhile since we last won. So, I think this will go a long way. And I think everyone wants to build back to this so we can finish the regular season strong and get some more wins.”

,Head coach Domenec Torrent had a great sense of relief his team finally took three points out of Yankee Stadium.

“Of course, it’s very important for us to win the game for our fans, for our players because you have more confidence when you are able to win the game,” he said.

Forward Ismael Tajouri-Shradi seconded that statement.

“The last few games was not our best,” he said. “I think the performance was good, but we don’t take the three points, we don’t score the goals – I think that’s the problem. In football, you must score the goals and I don’t think we’ve been doing that the last few games. We stay always together. We stay like a team and we say ‘today we need to win a game.’ I think the first half was not bad. We have a few chances and we could have scored one or two goals. But the second half, we played very well and at the end we took the three points.”

Of course, Wednesday night’s win was against the reeling Fire.

Whether NYCFC will be able to bring the confidence to the team and get its fire started in time for the playoffs, it remains to be seen.

Front Row Soccer editor Michael Lewis has covered 13 World Cups (eight men, five women), seven Olympics and 25 MLS Cups. He has written about New York City FC, New York Cosmos, the New York Red Bulls and both U.S. national teams for Newsday and has penned a soccer history column for the Guardian.com. Lewis, who has been honored by the Press Club of Long Island and National Soccer Coaches Association of America, is the former editor of BigAppleSoccer.com. He has written seven books about the beautiful game and has published ALIVE AND KICKING The incredible but true story of the Rochester Lancers. It is available at Amazon.com.