This month, everyone’s favorite MLS disaster returns with four more ways to disappoint their fans, their club, and themselves.
August 4, 2018, at Orlando City SC, 3-3 T
They started promisingly. Juan Agudelo scored early off a Brandon Bye long throw. Yes, a long throw in. Christian Penilla doubled the lead as a result of the Revolution pressing Orlando. Orlando scored an open play goal and a set piece goal. Teal Bunbury came on as a sub and immediately made an impact by scoring to put the Revolution ahead again. And then in the fourth minute of stoppage time, Orlando scored the last goal of the game off a set piece. Stoppage time set piece goal against the Revolution. Never heard that one before.
August 11, 2018, vs. Philadelphia Union, 2-3 L
Another day, another loss. The Revolution went down two goals in the first half, came back to tie the game in the second half, and lost in the 76th minute when a penalty kick was called against them for a handball in the box. Andrew Farrell scored his second goal, Wilfried Zahibo got his fourth off of a Diego Fagundez free kick, and Antonio Delamea was called for the handball.
August 19, 2018, at DC United, 2-0 L
I missed this game because it was nationally televised and not shown on ESPN+. I’m not sad that I did, which is kind of sad. Scott Caldwell got sent off for a second yellow for the first time in ~5 years in MLS. I’m not even mad. Sometimes when you’re in the middle of a soul-sucking losing streak, there’s nothing you can do but slide tackle someone with excessive force.
August 25, 2018, at Philadelphia Union, 0-1 L
This was a bit of a lackluster game. Philadelphia’s lone goal was scored on a breakaway that looked offside. The linesman raised his flag but the ref never blew the whistle, so after video review the Union were awarded the goal. Classic case of play to the whistle, but I will say that this was different from Bunbury’s possibly offside goal against Sporting Kansas City earlier in the season because of the time and space between the non-call and the ball in the net. It felt like the ref was about to blow the whistle any second, and Matt Turner did come off his line to try and make the save, but knowing the Revolution one of three things would have happened: 1) Turner touches the Union player, who collapses in agony instantly, and gets a red card, 2) Turner attempts a save, but looks so ridiculous that he ends up on that weekend’s compilation video of the “10 dumbest goalkeepers” and goes viral, or 3) he kind of tries to save the shot, misses, and the Revolution lose to the Union for the second time that month. On the bright side, new signing Michael Mancienne looked pretty solid in defense.
And so the Revolution fell to 7W-10L-8D, with an August record of 0W-3L-1D. They looked good for stretches (when they were scoring) against Orlando and during the first Union game. The rest of the time they were making some of the same dumb mistakes they’ve been making for the past three (four?) years. They don’t even necessarily look terrible all the time. They just do things like leave runners completely open in the box on corner kicks, and in the end, if you put the ball in the back of your opponent’s net more times than they put the ball in your net, you win. Amount of possession, number of shots, shots on goal, saves, and looking pretty don’t matter.
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