The Red Bulls know the history. They know they’re opening the MLS Cup playoffs against New England, a team they can’t beat in a place they can’t win. Fortunately for the Red Bulls, two players are left on those teams, and they are convinced they will be the team to turn it around.

The Red Bulls open a home-and-home Eastern Conference semifinal series tonight (7:30 p.m., FSC) against the second-seeded Revolution, a total-goals series with the road game next Saturday in Foxboro, Mass. The Red Bulls know they likely will have to win tonight to advance and are confident.

“There’s no question they have a very good team,” said coach Bruce Arena, whose team is winless (0-6-2) in their past eight games against the Revolution. “But we have a good team that’s capable of beating them.”

The Bulls also lost their last two playoff series against New England, winning their home game, 1-0, two years ago and leading 1-0 at Foxboro before giving up three goals in the final 22 minutes to lose.

“We’ve only won one series in history here. I was shocked,” midfielder Claudio Reyna said. “I knew they’d never made the final, but I was shocked. We need to try and do that, to win a second. We talked in the beginning of the year that we want to go one step further. We feel pretty good that we can get a good result.”

They feel good because of their recent form. After Arena juggled the league’s third-worst defense, the Red Bulls beat Kansas City 2-1 and recorded a 1-1 tie against Los Angeles to snap the red-hot Galaxy’s winning streak.