Viva the Revolution

The last thing I wanted to do while I was at home was to finally see the New England Revolution play at Gillette Stadium. I’ve been following the team since the last couple years of Steve Nicol’s tenure, when they were signing old European players, playing bunker ball, and generally playing their way out of the playoffs. I followed the team as they hired Jay Heaps, signed a bunch of players in the Superdraft, picked up MLS rejects, and played their way into the MLS cup final in 2014. Then I watched as they failed to make it to the playoffs last fall due to goal differential. [The Revolution would have gone to the playoffs over the Union if they beat Montreal by thirteen goals in the last game of the season. Totally doable. Not really.]

Part of their problems stemmed from the offense not clicking (and also hitting the goalposts twenty-three times during the season – if there was a contest for that, the Revolution would have won), but a larger part was the defense. When your defensive depth is shallow enough that after a couple injuries, the coach, a former Revolution defender, has to joke that the only solution off the table is him playing, I think that’s a problem. Teams playing under Jay Heaps also have a tendency to go on losing streaks in the summer, then magically improve as soon as fall arrives.

But the New England Revolution is my team, so I went to see them play near the end of their latest summer losing streak. Bizarrely enough, at this point in time, they were also advancing through the US Open Cup and winning those games. I’ve stopped trying to understand this team.

One of the (few) good things about not having their own soccer-specific stadium (SSS) yet is that Gillette Stadium is impressive. The stadium itself is less impressive when the upper bowl is closed, sections are covered in tarps, and the sections that are open are half full of Revolution fans, but having Patriot Place right next to the stadium is nice. There’s a lot of infrastructure (shopping, entertainment, restaurants) that the Krafts might not probably wouldn’t invest in next to a new SSS.

Revolution vs. Union at Gillette Stadium

We arrived at the stadium early to park and walk around a bit before the gates opened. It was drizzly through warm ups but stayed dry through the game. As for the game, that was a mess. The Union scored early, late, and in between. MLS claims the Revolution had 18 shots (4 on goal), but there was maybe one shot that could have been a goal (okay, there were a couple, plus a couple wide shots and the mandatory shot off the post). Sadly enough, even though the Union had almost twice the number of shots on goal, the Union goalkeeper had more saves than the Revolution keeper. Let’s not think about that one too much.

So the Revolution lost by a lot, couldn’t shoot or score, defended horrendously, the weather was damp and humid, and the stadium was over half empty. I had a good time and it was a fun experience. Next time hopefully I’ll at least get to hear the goal song. I don’t think that’s asking too much, is it?

Final score.

It might be. This is the Revolution we’re talking about.