In the Home Stretch

As we approached the end of the season, the Revolution remained in good playoff position. There were some highlights, some lowlights, and some things that are best blamed on 2020.

Wednesday, October 14 at Montreal Impact – 3-2 W – File this under “2020 things” – the Revolution travelled to New Jersey to play the Montreal Impact at Red Bull Arena while the Red Bulls were in Connecticut playing Toronto FC. I believe the Revolution had never won at Red Bull Arena before, and now they have, so the statistic is now that they haven’t won at Red Bull Arena against the Red Bulls. It’s like how I haven’t seen American football in the Big House (the Michigan stadium). Good news is that they came away with the three points even with a heavily rotated squad, Adam Buksa got a goal and an assist, Kekuta Manneh got his first Revolution goal, and Teal Bunbury picked up his team-leading sixth goal. Bad news is that Antonio Delamea and Michael Mancienne got the start as the center backs and did not look good, and the team gave up a late second half stoppage time goal. Delamea is a decent center back who would be good if he didn’t often make one really bad decision per game that leads to a goal or red card. He also looks better when he’s the weaker center back, which is not the case when his partner is Mancienne. However well Mancienne played in England, he has not been good for New England.

Monday, October 19 vs. Philadelphia Union – 1-2 L – Continuing the apparent curse of Gillette Stadium this year, the Revolution racked up another loss to the Union at home. With the Revolution likely to make the playoffs, I suspect Bruce Arena opted to rest a lot of his starters against Montreal and push for a win against Philadelphia in preparation for having to play a top team in the eastern conference during the playoffs. They tried. They failed. The Revolution actually managed to put the ball in the net more times than the Union. Unfortunately, one of those times ended with the ball in their own net. After sustained pressure from the Union, a cross hit Andrew Farrell’s foot and rolled into the corner of a confused Matt Turner’s goal. They’re not completely to blame because the Union possession started after Scott Caldwell got caught standing on the ball too long, which is usually how he gets into trouble. The Union doubled their lead midway through the second half before Tajon Buchanan scored a really nice late goal from the corner of the box. Lee Nguyen had a great free kick on goal minutes later, but the Union’s Andre Blake spared his team from dropping points.

Friday, October 23 at Nashville SC – 1-1 T – On the Revolution’s first trip to Nashville, it started pouring minutes before kickoff. After an eighty-minute weather delay, the thunderstorm moved on and the teams took the field. Say what you will about Gillette Stadium and its turf, the grounds crew has been good the past few seasons about scrubbing the football lines off for the Revolution and the field doesn’t turn into a soggy mess. Which is to say the football lines, Tennessee Titans logo, etc., were well visible on the broadcast and the ball did not play right for the first 20-25 minutes. This was also the Revolution’s first game since the restart with fans. They were pretty well spaced out, and I would probably have been okay with attending a game like that – if the coronavirus numbers looked like they did in the MA/CT/NY area in the summer – but not in Tennessee, and not with cases rising in almost every state. The crowd sounded really strange at least on the broadcast, if not also in real life. Either the broadcast mike was not working right or the stadium was haunted, but not in a cool way. Haunted by like, knockoff dollar store ghosts. Or a hoard of pheasant coucals. Anyway, weird game even without it going until midnight in the eastern time zone. The Revolution conceded a 74th minute goal off a corner, which is starting to become a problem (again), but equalized thanks to a 77th minute goal from Adam Buksa, who made space for himself to score from the top of the box with four Nashville defenders around him. The other big news was that Carles Gil, back from injury and Spain, travelled with the team, and made a substitute appearance. Maybe not the best night for him to return to the field, but it was something else the Revolution could take away from the game along with their point.

With three games to go, the Revolution very likely were going to get a playoff spot. Thus began the scheming to bring about the convergence of good form, players coming back from injury, and strategic seeding that would position them for their best shot at a playoff run.