A Little Night Magic, part 1

To recap, as of the firings of Brad Friedel/Mike Burns, this is what the first half of the Revolution's season looked like:

The good:
1) Carles Gil.
2) Rookies DeJuan Jones and Tajon Buchanan looked promising at times.

The bad:
1) The rotating door of goalkeepers, in which the starter was either determined by Brad Friedel’s horoscope for the day or rock, paper, scissors.
2) The defense literally standing still while ostensibly defending.¹
3) Teal Bunbury’s (lack of) form.²
4) Subpar performances from the rest of the attacking line as well. It took 8 games before an attacking player not named Gil scored, and 9 games before a striker did.
5) So, basically everything. Hello, 2-8-2 record.

¹Seriously. 3 Revolution players in the six-yard box plus 4 more in the penalty area plus their goalkeeper against 3 Union players and they still can’t keep the ball out of the net.
²I’m not here to call out particular players, but Twitter actually has a #DammitTeal hashtag that I just learned followed him from Kansas City. And if you’ve got a stat called “number of shots that go out the opposite side of the field for throws ins,” you might be going a little more wrong than the rest of the team.

The reason everyone was surprised when Friedel and Burns were fired is that historically, the Krafts/Revolution have done very little in terms of coaching, player acquisition, and facilities to convince fans and the general public that they’re serious about soccer. After Steve Nicol, they hired former defender Jay Heaps, who was working for Morgan Stanley at the time and had no coaching experience. Heaps took the Revolution to the 2014 MLS cup, helped along by MLS’s first and last blind draw that sent USMNT player Jermaine Jones to New England. He did what he could with what he was given, but consecutive poor seasons in 2016 and 2017 led to his dismissal. Since that experiment ended so very well, the Revolution thought they’d try it again with Brad Friedel, former USMNT goalkeeper and general manager Mike Burns’ college roommate . . . who also had essentially no coaching experience.

Friedel never really seemed to get the Revolution to click. He also had a habit of throwing players under the bus during interviews, and reportedly lost the locker room and micromanaged his players during games by screaming at them to move two steps to the right. At least that’s what #NERevs Twitter says, but I can buy it based on player attitudes and the number of players who left the team unhappily. As for Burns, he served the club as a player, director of soccer, vice president of player personnel, and finally general manager, but by that point he had gained a reputation as the worst manager in MLS to work with, which is . . . not good.

With Friedel and Burns gone, this is where Mike Lapper comes in. This is where things get crazy again. Bruce Arena is hired shortly after the firings, but won’t be coaching for several weeks, so Lapper, Friedel’s assistant coach, is tasked with filling in until then. And in his first game, New England wins. They score, they defend, they look good doing it. They look . . . happy? Lapper wins over the fans, not just because the team has gotten a positive result, but because he genuinely seems like a nice guy that the Revolution enjoy playing for.

He follows the San Jose win up with ties on the road against Montreal (a road point that would have been at least a three-goal loss with a red card a week ago) and at home against DC United [a home point that probably should have been a home win, according to the Twitter outrage (I missed watching this game)]. He leaves the Revolution with a 1-0-2 record, undefeated in MLS play, to the dismay of fans.

Now enter Bruce Arena. Arena’s first game is on the road at the LA Galaxy, the very team he coached against the Revolution in their heartbreaking fifth MLS cup loss in 2014. I debated whether I should stay up for the game, because 7:30 pm California time is 10:30 pm Michigan time, and it was a Sunday night, but I decided to see how Arena’s first game would pan out. The Revolution proceed to show up to the game and outplay the Galaxy. Cristian Penilla has multiple shots on goal before he gets one (off a Carles Gil pass) into the goal. Gil picks up another assist when none other than #DammitTeal not only hangs on to the pass but also gets around his defender, puts the shot on frame, and scores. Turns out that’s the game-winning goal because Zlatan “I will break all the records”³ Ibrahimovic scores a pretty average bicycle kick goal to pull one back for the Galaxy.

³Most career red cards in MLS is 10. Better start fouling, Zlatan.

Instead of giving up a stoppage time goal on a corner kick, the Revolution weather the remaining minutes of the game plus stoppage time to secure their first win under Bruce Arena and go into the Gold Cup break 2-0-2 since Friedel was fired. Worth it to stay up past midnight watching soccer, because for the first time in months, it feels like the Revolution are playing for something.