Double Donuts

While I was at home, my list of things to do was as follows: 1) Go to Wegmans, 2) Eat cake, and 3) Attend a Revolution game. Though I did accomplish all three items on the list, this post is about item number three. The last time I was physically at a Revolution game, Bobby Shuttleworth was struggling in net, Charlie Davies had just been traded to the Union, and the team lost 4-0 to the Philadelphia Union. Since then, on the coaching front, they’ve parted ways with Jay Heaps, hired Brad Friedel, fired Brad Friedel, and lured Bruce Arena to New England; the only players still playing on the team are Brad Knighton, Matt Turner, Andrew Farrell, Scott Caldwell, and Teal Bunbury; and the team has won a single trophy – a preseason mobile mini sun cup, which was indeed mobile and mini. So considering my last Revolution game and the entirety of whatever it was Brad Friedel did for a year and a half, my only wish for this game was that they wouldn’t lose, and if they managed to score it would be an added bonus.

There was reason to hope. Bruce Arena had the team off to an 11-3-3 start through the first half of the season, and their 36 points were good to lead both the Eastern Conference and the Supporters’ Shield standings (I don’t think I’ve ever seen them on top of the Eastern Conference this late in the season, let alone leading the entire league). All three designated players were tallying up goals and assists for the stat sheets – Carles Gil and his 15 assists were on pace to beat the MLS single-season assists record, Gustavo Bou had already hit double-digit goals, and Adam Buksa had eight goals and looked good on the field after a disappointing first season in MLS. Alas, it was not (entirely) to be. The Revolution didn’t lose, but on this Wednesday night in August, they were playing Nashville SC, in the rain, with Carles Gil out injured. It was quite a slog. On the plus side, Gold Cup champions Matt Turner (and Henry Kessler) were back from their time with the USMNT, as was Canadian Tajon Buchanan.¹

 

Pregame at Gillette Stadium

When we arrived at the stadium shortly before kickoff, it was already raining. If I’d had more schedule flexibility, I would not have chosen to attend a game against Nashville SC, but here we were. Nashville plays soccer that earns them points, but it can be slightly painful to watch. Combine that with the weather² and Gil’s absence leaving a creative hole in the center of the field, and it was not a great game to witness.

Soccer in the rain

Bou and Buksa started as the forwards, but they’ve had trouble connecting with each other in the past, as ended up being true on this night. Bou got in a couple shots on goal, but Buksa in particular seems to struggle to score without Carles Gil’s service and presence on the field, though his hold up play and passing have looked significantly improved over last year. In midfield, Matt Polster and Buchanan played centrally with Wilfrid Kaptoum and Arnor Traustason on the wings. Polster was solid, Buchanan did okay for being out of position, I’m still not sold on Kaptoum, and Traustason was mostly ineffective. The defense (DeJuan Jones, Kessler, Andrew Farrell, and Brandon Bye) was somewhere between passable and pretty good (they didn’t let in any goals so I can’t say they were bad), and Turner didn’t have much to do but made his two saves that he had to. [The game ended in a scoreless draw, 0-0, so although New England couldn’t put the ball into Nashville’s goal, they at least got the shutout. You have to take the positives where you can find them, because this was otherwise a very boring game.]

Post final whistle, fans fleeing Fortress Foxborough

The Revolution had a couple okay shots on goal, but nothing that really challenged Nashville’s keeper. There was one penalty call against Nashville that was overturned (correctly) after going to VAR where it was determined that the Nashville defender didn’t actually make contact with Bou. It was very wet, though the rain finally mostly died down in the middle of the second half. The stadium looked nowhere near full, and the scoreline did not cheer up those who did attend. At least the Revolution didn’t lose, so that was an improvement over the last game I went to. Maybe next time I’m at a game they’ll manage to score, and if the stars align and Mercury is rising in the opal quarter with Andromeda in retrograde, they’ll even win.

¹Turner played all six games (3 group stage, 3 knockout), let in a single penalty kick goal, and was given the Golden Glove Award. Buchanan had a strong tournament, scored the only goal up to that point against Mexico, and won the Young Player Award. Kessler, on the other hand, was called up to replace an injured player and played the last three minutes of the US’s final game after they’d scored in added extra time, but he still got his Gold Cup medal.

²Rain + midweek = great social distancing conditions. There were allegedly 10,279 people in attendance, but even if that number is accurate, that’s six seats for every fan with Gillette Stadium’s capacity of 66,878.

December Soccer

Sunday, November 29 at Orlando City SC – 3-1 W – After facing old friends in the first two rounds, the Revolution encountered Orlando for the first time in 2020. While it was freezing back in New England, it was a steamy 80 in Florida, as evidenced by the shirtless fans in attendance. If you’re going to have fans in the middle of a pandemic while thousands are getting sick, hospitalizations are rising, the medical system is being strained, and people are dying, at the very least keep them spread out and masked. But no, every time the broadcast cut to fans there was at least one fully unmasked person and one or two more with noses sticking out, plus people crowding together, and lots of yelling. Not cool, Orlando. Also not a good look – the amount of whining that Orlando did, which will come into play later. Similarly to the Union game, the Revolution scored two early goals, the first a 17th minute penalty kick that Tajon Buchanan earned and Carles Gil converted. The second goal came in minute 25 and started with Buchanan winning the ball off Orlando DP Nani. Gil took the ball down the field, slowed down outside the box just enough to give Buchanan time to make a run on the right, and handed the ball off to Buchanan, who put the ball into the box. Adam Buksa’s sliding shot came off the post (again), and Gustavo Bou picked up the rebound to put New England up two goals. Orlando got a goal back off an awful miscommunication between Henry Kessler and Matt Turner. Then, fifteen minutes into the second half, an Orlando player made a flying, studs-up tackle into Matt Polster’s calf. One hundred percent a red card, but the Orlando players lose their minds and swarm the ref, earning Nani a yellow card for dissent (which should probably have been given, like, yesterday for the amount of screaming at and touching of the ref he’d already done) and Orlando their third mass confrontation fine of the season. Now the Revolution just have to see the game out, which is easier said than done when you’re the Revolution. In the 74th minute, they give up a penalty, and none other than Nani steps up to the spot . . . but Turner saves his shot. To close out the night, Buksa, Gil, and Bou combine to get Bou his second goal of the night in the 86th minute, which is enough to end Orlando’s hopes of a comeback.

Sunday, December 6 at Columbus Crew – 0-1 L – The Revolution made it far enough into the playoffs to be playing in December. [Side note – fans were present, but the spacing looked much better than at the Orlando game. No camera closeups of the stands, maybe to avoid showing things they wouldn’t want to reveal to those watching, but the general atmosphere at least felt like they were acknowledging that the pandemic exists.] Unfortunately, this was not their day. They couldn’t maintain possession in the middle of the field and their counterattack wasn’t sharp enough to get much going. Bruce Arena had been playing Matt Polster and Scott Caldwell in the middle of the midfield, and they’d been good, but they had too much to do in Columbus with the amount of possession the team was conceding. The Crew got their goal in the middle of the second half from a nicely placed cross, layoff, and shot into the bottom corner of Turner’s goal. Around that time, there was a missed pass between Gil and Bou that felt like a decent representation of the game. Following three solid games, it felt like players were half a step off from each other. They pushed for an equalizer that would get them to extra time, but there would be no goal for them this day. Thus ended their very weird 2020 season.

Final thoughts on the season: Matt Turner was the most consistent player all season. I’m not going to argue he should be the USMNT’s starting goalkeeper, but he deserves a callup and probably a cap.

Henry Kessler was robbed of the Rookie of the Year award. Okay, there was another player who probably would have won, but he had a legitimate case. However, with three games left in the season, MLS changed it to the Young Player of the Year award so they could give it to someone else. As a defender, he’s not going to get as much attention as a forward scoring goals, but he had a really good rookie season.

Tajon Buchanan is the most improved/breakout player of the year for the team. He didn’t suddenly start putting up crazy numbers of goals and assists, but he did get his first professional goal(s), and looks dangerous on the right side of the field.

Having Carles Gil on the field for the Revolution makes the entire team play better. That’s it. That’s the thought.

Turns out paying for designated players works. In their playoff run, Gil had two goals and three assists, Bou had three goals and an assist, and Buksa only had one goal, but had shots go off the post in (I think) every game and he looks much better with Gil controlling the ball in the midfield and providing service into the box.

And finally, honestly, even just the Philadelphia win would have been a decent end to the season, but they made it a game farther to the Eastern Conference Final. With the unpredictability of the playoffs, a conference final isn’t a bad way to go out. There’s a little bit of wondering what if – what if they made it to MLS cup? what if this was their year? – but ultimately, in a year of stops and starts, empty stadiums, bizarre schedules, bubbles, travel restrictions, and unprecedented times, they delivered some special moments. Long live the crayon flag.

Sixth Time’s the Charm

Following the end of the regular season and a two-week break, MLS playoffs shenanigans commenced.

Friday, November 20 vs. Montreal Impact – 2-1 W – With one win in their final five games, the Revolution fell in the standings and played themselves into a play-in game against the Impact. At an empty Gillette Stadium, the teams met for the fifth time in 2020. The Impact won the season opener in Montreal all the way back on Leap Day, but New England followed that up with victories at MLS is back in Orlando, at home in Foxborough, and away at Red Bull Arena. Would the Revolution be able to take a fourth win from the Impact? As it turned out, yes. They were the better team through most of the first half, and were moving the ball pretty well with Carles Gil, Gustavo Bou, and Adam Buksa all starting. As halftime closed in, Bou put in a cross to Gil, who volleyed the ball into the back of the net to put the Revolution ahead. It was his first goal of the season, and a very nice one at that. Montreal evened the score on an unmarked header off a free kick (never seen that before, Revolution /s). That left New England most of the second half to push for a go-ahead goal. They tried, had some shots, but it wasn’t until the last minute of stoppage time that Bou was given too much time and space outside the top of the box, shot, and scored. And though he didn’t score, Buksa had a good game – he had a couple headers saved off the posts; Tajon Buchanan had a decent shot and looked okay at right back for about half the game (he was subbed off and Matt Polster took over there); and Teal Bunbury had a chance to put the Revolution ahead in the middle of the second half, took time to aim, and shot over the crossbar. Would it be a Revolution game otherwise?

Tuesday, November 24 at Philadelphia Union – 2-0 W – “Hello Philly our old friend/We’ve come to face you once again/Because the Impact we have beaten/Now the seeds say ‘play the Union’/In the playoffs where strange things can happen/All the time/Within the game of soccer” (thanks and apologies to Simon and Garfunkel and “The Sound of Silence”). In their sixth meeting of 2020, the Revolution finally came away from Pennsylvania with a victory, upsetting the top seed in the eastern conference and ruining a lot of brackets. Nashville, the other play-in game victor, also upset their opponent, number two seed Toronto, leading people to wonder if giving the top seeds a two-week break while the play-in teams were coming in with momentum was actually a good idea. Over in Pennsylvania, after the teams settled in, the Revolution struck twice in quick succession in the 26th and 30th minutes. After a good game against Montreal, Adam Buksa got his goal, a header off a Carles Gil free kick. That was followed minutes later by Tajon Buchanan receiving the ball, again from Gil, on the right side of the field, getting around his defender, and putting the ball in the back of the net. With a two-goal lead, New England proceeded to mostly (minus one ridiculous shot by Gil that almost curled straight into the top right corner of the goal but hit the crossbar) play bunkerball for the remaining hour plus of soccer. It wasn’t pretty, but it got the job done, to the relief of Revolution fans everywhere. Two funny things about this game – 1) limited numbers of fans were present, but the broadcast covered them up with the fake tarps/ads they’ve been superimposing over the stands all season, and 2) the broadcast team placed a microphone really close to Bruce Arena, providing us with such great quotes as “we’re killing the game off, Kelyn,” “get up, Henry,” and “clear the ball.”

With that, the Revolution moved on into the bracket, to face Orlando City SC in Orlando. After throwing everyone’s predictions into disarray, the feeling around the team was “why not?”

Bound for the Playoffs Land

Well, MLS made it to the end of the regular season. Kind of. All fourteen teams in the eastern conference played their planned twenty-three games, in contrast to the western conference where only four of twelve teams did. Most western conference teams did only miss one or two games, but Colorado played a league-low eighteen games. As people suspected, when it became impossible for Colorado to fit in all their coronavirus-cancelled games before the last day of the season without playing, like, every day, MLS announced that playoff seeding would be based on points per game. Nothing changed in the eastern conference, but some western conference fans were (probably rightfully) annoyed that a team that missed close to a quarter of the season ended up with a pretty high playoff seed.

Wednesday, October 28 at New York Red Bulls – 0-1 L – In this classic Revolution performance, they played reasonably well, and outplayed New York by certain metrics, but failed to put quality shots on goal and gave up an 89th minute goal off a corner kick. Again. With the season winding down, it feels like Bruce Arena is trying to manage minutes while figuring out who he wants to play during the playoffs but also getting the team to score consistently without giving up stupid goals. It’s something I don’t think he’s quite worked out yet. Through most of the season, they weren’t scoring, but they also weren’t letting opposing teams score, so there were a lot of 1-0/0-1 wins and losses and 0-0/1-1 ties. Then when the scoring picked up a bit, they also started letting in more goals – see Montreal on October 14th and the next game against D.C. But even with the loss, because of other results in the league, the Revolution clinched their playoff spot.

Sunday, November 1 vs. D.C. United – 4-3 W – To close out the home slate at Gillette, the Revolution and D.C. met on a very wet and rainy afternoon in Foxborough. The defense did not have a great game, as the scoreline suggests. They looked to be struggling with the slipperiness of the ball and didn’t want to commit too hard to plays, allowing D.C. two early goals. Adam Buksa got one back for New England after Carles Gil’s penalty attempt hit the post and rebounded into the penalty box. (Second time Gil’s been rescued by a teammate after an unconverted penalty kick, the first being in the insane 4-4 Kansas City draw last season that led into the losses that culminated in Brad Friedel’s dismissal.) After the halftime break, Tajon Buchanan, who was looking pretty good on the right wing, put in a cross that a United player kicked into his own goal very unnecessarily. We’ll take it. The Revolution went ahead on a Teal Bunbury goal thanks to another Buchanan cross, but D.C. leveled the score with a third goal of their own because apparently the game wasn’t enough of a mess yet. New England almost scored after Gustavo Bou, on a breakaway, got the ball to Buksa, but the United goalkeeper made the save. He, however, gave up a rebound, and who else but Bunbury was there to get his second goal of the night and earn the Revolution the win. For about fifteen minutes in the second half of this game, New England had all three of their DPs (designated players) on the field for the first time since July and MLS is back.

Sunday, November 8 at Philadelphia Union – 0-2 L – Same song, second fourth/fifth verse. For the fourth time in the regular season (fifth overall including MLS is back), the Revolution and the Union faced each other. For the third time (fourth overall), the Revolution lost. Arena’s still messing with the lineup. He started all three DPs, but people were not on the same page. There were way too many passes behind players, out of bounds passes, confusion about who was going to take the ball, and nobody would shoot. It’s a little hard to score if you never shoot. No offence combined with questionable defense led to the loss. The defense has not had a good end to the season. They’re not closing down players outside the box to stop crosses, not closing down players inside the box to stop shots, and not marking second balls after set pieces. Let’s hope they get it together for the playoffs.

Now it’s on to the playoffs, though the Revolution managed to play themselves into a play-in game against the Montreal Impact. Hopefully they’ll at least win that, but this is the Revolution, so even if they do, they’ll probably lose the next actual playoff game, get sent home for postseason, and come back next year for another season of futility. But for now, we have at least one more night of Revolution-induced high blood pressure.

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.

. . . must come down?

If you’ve been following the Revolution for any length of time, you know not to get your hopes up. You keep your optimism in the closet and only allow it to peek out after the final whistle’s been blown. If there’s a way they can screw something up, they’ll find it, and then some, just to make absolutely sure potential wins turn into ties and ties become losses. So I wasn’t entirely surprised that after a good end to September, October started less good.

Saturday, October 3 vs. Nashville SC – 0-0 T – In the first ever meeting between New England and Nashville, nobody scored. It was a game that the Revolution could have won, but like so often happens with them, they didn’t step up to get things done. Nashville’s defense has been solid, especially for an expansion team, so not the worst result. It earned Matt Turner his season-best sixth shutout, at least.

Wednesday, October 7 vs. Toronto FC – 0-1 L – Toronto have been establishing themselves as possibly the best team in MLS right now, so I would have been happy with a tie. Alas, it was not to be. The Revolution were not great, but I won’t say they were terrible either. Toronto’s goal came on a breakaway that Andrew Farrell seemed to be handling until he was pushed. Former Revolution player and now color commentator Charlie Davies insists the Toronto player was just using his strength, but I still lean towards offensive foul. 1) Farrell had decent position on the Toronto player. There’s no reason he would fall unless he was fouled. (Maybe the one thing he should have done was just kick the ball out and concede the corner. I think he had enough time to do that instead of try to make the play and keep the ball in, but then again he wasn’t planning to get fouled.) 2) If the Toronto player had gone down like that, Farrell would almost positively have been booted off the field for DOGSO (denying an obvious goal scoring opportunity). 3) He gets pushed into the ball and trips over it, which makes it more foul-ish for me than just getting shouldered off the ball. Midway through the second half, Lee Nguyen was pretty obviously fouled in the box and earned a penalty kick. However, after the Toronto goal it felt like one of those games where the Revolution shoot themselves in the foot. And indeed, instead of Nguyen taking the penalty (and it would have been a birthday penalty), Adam Buksa stepped up to the spot . . . and missed the goal. I feel bad that Buksa hasn’t had a great season, but he absolutely has to put his penalty on frame. Just one of those nights.

Sunday, October 11 at NYCFC – 2-1 W – Somehow NYCFC got themselves back into Yankee Stadium and onto their *allegedly* regulation size soccer field (it’s basically the smallest size allowable by FIFA but feels even tinier than it should). The players appreciate the grass, but this must have been the slipperiest grass the Yankees could grow, because people were falling all over the place. Though the game had its shaky moments, the Revolution came away with another road win. After two games without scoring, who better to get things going again than Teal Bunbury? In the third minute of the game, New England gained possession in the middle of the field. Bunbury passed to Nguyen, who weighted his pass perfectly back to Bunbury to get him behind the defense. With two defenders behind him and the goalkeeper in front, he got the ball off his foot and into the back of the net. MLSsoccer.com analyst Matt Doyle insinuates his shot wasn’t entirely intentional, but Revolution fans know that Teal Bunbury never does anything accidentally. Ever. New England managed the game pretty well through the first half, then NYCFC started coming into the game early in the second half, but Arena used his substitutes to both regain control and manage minutes. Matt Polster made his first appearance since getting kicked in the head and seemed okay. He got himself fouled in the box, setting Nguyen up for a makeup penalty, which he made in the 80th minute. Turns out they needed the insurance goal, as NYCFC got a goal of their own in stoppage time, spoiling what could have been Matt Turner’s seventh shutout of the season. It felt like a solidly Revolution performance, with 10 of the 11 starters having played college soccer, 2 homegrown players getting minutes, no designated players starting (Gustavo Bou and Carles Gil were out with injuries and Buksa, well, Wednesday happened) and the entire backline + goalkeeper coming from the Superdraft. And as an added bonus, Nguyen’s assist makes him the first Revolution player to 50 goals and 50 assists.

Six games to go, and things are getting/remaining interesting. In the eastern conference, Toronto has already clinched their playoff spot. New England is five points back from the top four, who get to host, two points ahead of the seventh-tenth places, who have an additional play-in game, and seven points clear of the playoff line. They remain in decent playoff position, but can’t afford too many mistakes and still don’t look great against the top teams. The western conference has a bit of a coronavirus problem, with Colorado having players and staff members testing positive during multiple rounds of testing. They’ve only played 13 games to the 16 or 17 they should be at and are out of dates for matches to be rescheduled. Other games have been postponed in both conferences, but Colorado’s going to be the biggest problem. Hopefully teams stay on top of things and this doesn’t get any worse. If it does, the playoff seeds are going to have to be determined by points per game or something, and MLS cup 2020* is going to turn into MLS cup 2020*^*.

What goes up . . .

MLS keeps trucking on to the end of the season, as temperatures drop and become more bearable in the south and flirt with frost and freezes in the north. The league released the final twelve-game schedule, keeping matches between teams within a 1-2 hour flight radius. The Canadian teams will play their “home” games in the US, Vancouver using Providence Park (Portland’s stadium), Toronto at UConn’s stadium, and Montreal borrowing Red Bull Arena (which is also hosting NYCFC, whose usual home “field” is Yankee Stadium). The remainder of the Revolution’s schedule involves playing Toronto and the Red Bulls once, and NYCFC, Montreal, D.C. United, Nashville, and the Philadelphia Union twice. It’s a pretty fair schedule. Toronto and Philadelphia are contenders for the top of the east, while United and Montreal have been struggling as of late, and Nashville is an expansion team. By the end of the season, they’ll have played no western conference teams, and only eight of the other thirteen eastern conference teams (no games against Miami, Orlando, Atlanta, Columbus, or Cincinnati). They’ll have faced Nashville, Toronto, the Red Bulls, and the Chicago Fire twice, NYCFC three times, and Montreal, D.C., and the Union four times, giving off strong 1996 inaugural MLS season vibes, when the ten teams played the other teams three or four times each.

Saturday, September 19 vs. NYCFC – 0-0 T – Following their last-minute loss in Philadelphia, the team returned to Foxborough for a rematch with NYCFC. Compared to whatever they were doing a couple weeks prior, they looked much better, but their scoring woes continued (though they did coax six yellow cards for NYCFC out of the ref while earning none of their own). Lee Nguyen made his first start for the Revolution in almost three years, and I’m still trying to figure out if he’s been the team’s missing piece or it’s a coincidence that things are suddenly clicking for New England.¹ The forwards had a few decent looks at goal, and two or three offside goals, and the defense kept NYCFC from too many quality chances, with Matt Turner bailing them out when necessary.

Wednesday, September 23 vs. Montreal Impact – 3-1 W – In a reversal of their usual fortunes, the Revolution had been keeping themselves in playoff contention by tying and winning games on the road, but they had yet to win at home, until this game. Thanks to all the coronavirus weirdness, it had been almost a full year since their last home victory. They started strong, but were unable to get on the scoreboard until a first-half stoppage time corner kick. Nguyen provided the service, and the ball came off of someone’s head before falling to Henry Kessler, who fired a shot into the corner of the net for his first MLS goal. Besides making everyone on the team and Revolution fans really happy, he has the distinction of recording New England’s first goal of 2020 not scored by a player whose last name doesn’t start with B (Gustavo Bou, Adam Buksa, Teal Bunbury, and Tajon Buchanan). Coming out of the half, the Revolution continued to look good, and made something of it when Bou picked up his fourth goal of the season after his blocked pass/shot rebounded back to him, he made some space for himself near the corner of the penalty area, and slotted the ball into the goal. It was his first goal in close to a month, which is non-ideal if you’re one of the team’s leading goal scorers. Substitute Diego Fagundez capped off the scoring for New England with his first goal in over a year (and Buchanan got his first assist), so all around it felt like a game the Revolution needed. Substitutes Cristian Penilla and Buska also looked dangerous, though they didn’t find their way onto the scoresheet. Montreal collected a late consolation goal after both right-sided defenders were caught too far up the field, spoiling the shutout but not the overall result.

Sunday, September 27 at D.C. United – 2-0 W – Similarly to Montreal, D.C. have been struggling to get results (Montreal has lost their last four games, been outscored 14-4, and has something like four red cards in five games; D.C. is winless in five games, four of which they were shut out in). Still, the Revolution themselves haven’t exactly been the paragon of scoring prowess, and they have a unique ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. They arrived in the nation’s capital and unusually had the majority of possession, atypical for the visiting team (thanks Nguyen?). The first half was spoiled when Matt Polster got kicked in the head after going in for a slide tackle. Consensus: 1,000% percent concussed, but he walked off the field with the medical staff and by the end of the game was doing better, per Bruce Arena. It was completely accidental, and players from both teams were visibly concerned. They played out the first-half stoppage time and headed into the locker room to regroup. The second half was playing out similar to the first, until Bou scored on a pass from Penilla in the 86th minute. Penilla got the second assist as well, on a Revolution counter after getting the ball to an open Adam Buksa on a Revolution counterattack. Faced with only D.C.’s goalkeeper, Buksa chipped him for his first goal in two and a half months. After surviving stoppage time, the Revolution came away with consecutive multi-goal games, their fifth shutout, and their first back to back wins in 2020.

So a strong eight days from the Revolution puts them in a good position re: playoffs, and several players picked up much-needed goals. Things are looking up, but the season’s far from over. Heading down the final stretch, they have nine games in 36 days, so player rotation and roster depth may become vital, as well as keeping players healthy. Here’s hoping for a good October.

¹Seriously, Lee Nguyen gets back and all of a sudden Bou, Buksa, and Fagundez score again. Kessler and Buchanan get their first goals, and second-year player Buchanan looks like he may have this MLS thing figured out. Penilla isn’t scoring, but he’s picking up assists, and is playing like he could be scoring. The defense is reliable, if occasionally caught napping, and a far cry from the porous mess they were under Brad Friedel. Turner is solid, and has kept the Revolution in games when they weren’t scoring. Scott Caldwell has strung together his best games in literal years, and Kelyn Rowe, Matt Polster, and Tommy McNamara have also looked good in central midfield. And Bunbury continues to do Bunbury things. In the D.C. game, deadlocked at 0-0, Bou dummies a pass to Bunbury at the top of the penalty area. Bunbury does all the hard work to control the ball, shake off pressure from one defender, avoid another, and get the shot off with only the goalkeeper to beat, and goes wide. In the words of the announcer, “oh, no!”

#MLSisBack (. . . again, for real this time, probably): part 2 of stage 3

After stopping and starting play more than traffic on I-95 past New York City (not really, but you get the point), this latest group of games has been the longest stretch of continuous play for most teams. The Revolution have at least met the benchmark of not being terrible, but they still haven’t convincingly proven that they can play a game resembling soccer on any given night.

Wednesday, September 2 vs. NYCFC – 0-2 L – Still at home at Gillette, the Revolution suffered their first loss in eight games (which isn’t as great as it sounds – the seven prior games included five ties). They were outpossessed, couldn’t hold on to the ball in the middle of the field, kind of shot (hey, at least they registered shots on goal), and generally looked . . . not good. Michael Mancienne, replacing Andrew Farrell at center back, scored, for the wrong team, not for the first time. Look, everyone makes mistakes, but one of your big concerns for your center back should not be if his header/slide tackle/attempted clearance is going to end up in his own goalkeeper’s net whenever he touches the ball in the penalty area.

Sunday, September 6 at Chicago Fire – 2-1 W – Back on the road, Chicago and the Revolution began the game by trading goals off of defensive mistakes. New England scored early after Gustavo Bou won a ball in the midfield and centered it for Adam Buksa, who dropped a header behind his defender for Tommy McNamara to run on to. McNamara passed the ball across the face of goal where Teal Bunbury was waiting to knock it in. On the other side of the field, the Revolution were not dealing well with corner kicks, and conceded after the initial corner was cleared, but Brandon Bye kept a Fire player onside when the ball was played back into the box by Chicago. Nevertheless, the Revolution were rescued by none other than Teal Bunbury, who in his Bunbury-est goal of 2020, scored when his attempted cross to find Bou or Buksa curled beautifully into the top corner of the goal. To make things even better/worse, former Revolution player Bobby Shuttleworth was in net for Chicago. After that goal, New England decided not to test their luck any further and dropped back a lot and played defensively for the rest of the game.

Midweek – In the latest installment of “Bruce brings back Friedel’s fired footballers,” Lee Nguyen was reacquired by the team from Miami, joining Kelyn Rowe (and Seth Sinovic, but he left much earlier, when Steve Nicol was coach) in coming back to the Revolution after Brad Friedel chased them off. I still don’t agree completely with Nguyen’s behavior in bargaining for a higher salary in 2018 (he had recently signed a new contract), but Friedel was definitely a large part of the problem. A team doesn’t go from losing two games in five days with a combined score of 11-1 to grinding out ties and wins with the exact same players after the coach is fired, unless there was a problem with the coach. Nguyen’s older now, and hasn’t been playing the same kinds of minutes as he was with the Revolution, but at this point in this season, why not give him a try? The Revolution didn’t play with the same kind of fluidity after he left until Carles Gil arrived, and they haven’t looked like that since Gil’s been injured. He knows the league, the team, the players, the location, the stadium and field. [But the training facility is new. No more riding golf carts to the practice fields. Which seriously was how they used to get to their grass fields from the locker room.] So why not? Let’s give it a shot.

Saturday, September 12 at Philadelphia Union – 1-2 L – On the Revolution bingo card: lose a game they might have tied on a last-minute-of-second-half-stoppage-time-corner-kick goal – check. For the third time in eight weeks, the Revolution had a game against the Union, this time heading down to Pennsylvania for the away game. Gustavo Bou, having played the majority of the five previous games in seventeen days and seeming visibly tired in the Chicago game, started on the bench. Joining him was Lee Nguyen, who shortened his quarantine by driving (not flying) directly from Florida to Massachusetts, the same evening he was traded, in a Tesla. Because of course. Anyway, the players on the field had an uneventful first half, managing to keep Philadelphia off the scoreboard while not creating many chances for themselves.

Shortly into the second half, Matt Polster picked up a second yellow card for pulling a Union player back, which is rightfully a foul, but I would argue the play also included the Union player flinging himself to the ground like he’d just been karate kicked in the back of the head. The Revolution then park basically all of their players in their half of the field, which goes decently until Philadelphia scores on a typical defensive circus of errors. However, after already subbing in Scott Caldwell to cover for Polster, Diego Fagundez, and Tajon Buchanan, Bruce Arena uses his final two substitutions to bring on Bou and Nguyen for the last fifteen minutes of the game. Almost immediately, New England’s presence in the middle of the field improves. Whether it’s because Bou has gotten some rest or because the Revolution really have been missing someone who can keep and pass the ball in the middle of the field, I don’t know, but in the moments leading to their tying goal, there were glimpses of the 2014 MLS cup team there. The goal came off a give and go with Bou and was Buchanan’s first ever MLS goal, so congratulations to him. In typical Revolution fashion, they then hang in there until the very last corner kick of the game, when Fagundez’s clearance travels about five feet out of the box to an unmarked Union player directly in front of the goal¹ who takes his time and space to score a(n admittedly nice) goal. No points for you, New England.

¹Defending 101, taught to literal children: clear the ball to the sidelines, not the middle of the field, especially if you’re only going to kick it about three feet and literally almost any other action (kicking the ball way, way down the field; out to the side for a throw in; or into empty space in the midfield), would probably slow down the game enough to make it to the final whistle.

Takeaways: Not much Matt Turner could have done. Andrew Farrell and Henry Kessler continue to look like the team’s best center back pairing. Alexander Buttner, at left back, had a couple decent crosses and one very good one. Polster, minus red card, has been a good fit at defensive midfield, but Caldwell had the most solid game I’ve seen from him since Montreal at the Returnament, especially once Lee Nguyen came on. Based on his limited minutes, Nguyen still looks like he could play very well with this team. And even without the goal, Buchanan has looked better in his recent appearances – less likely to dribble directly into opposing defenders and take absurd shots. So it’s on to the next set of three games. Montreal has been freed from Canada, so get ready for #MapleSyrupDerby time again.

#MLSisBack (. . . again, for real this time, probably): part 1 of stage 3

In the latest installment of the 2020 MLS season, the league released a set of six games for each team against teams in their general geographic area so that the away team can take charter flights to and from the game on gameday itself. One more funny thing to add to the absurdity that’s already been the 2020 season so far is that because crossing the US/Canada border is currently restricted, the three Canadian teams (Toronto FC, the Montreal Impact, and the Vancouver Whitecaps) can only play each other right now. The majority of teams (all except FC Dallas, Sporting Kansas City, Orlando City SC, and Real Salt Lake¹ is what I’m finding online) have not had any fans present, though the Revolution had socially-distanced drive-in viewing parties in Gillette during the Returnament², which were a big hit based on what I’ve seen. After these six games, the league is planning for twelve more games before the playoffs, ending up in a 23-game season – the 2 games played before the season was postponed, the 3 group stage games at the Returnament, these 6 regional games, and the final to-be-released 12 games.

So far in the season, the Revolution have at times looked pretty good, and at others been uninspired. However, uninspired is miles better than last year’s “how do I play soccer” team under Brad Friedel, so I’ll take it. Here’s how New England did in their most recent set of games:

Thursday, August 20 vs. Philadelphia Union – 0-0 T – Following their return from Florida, the Revolution resumed training in preparation for their rematch with the Union, their first game at Gillette since March. The broadcast wasn’t too bad – the crowd noise wasn’t too overpowering, but they put fake virtual tarps over the empty seats that block the ball in the air. Otherwise it was soccer as usual, with a couple twists. Five substitutions per team allowed at a maximum of three different stoppages plus halftime, and hydration breaks at the referee’s discretion if it’s above 82 F, but we’re talking about New England at the end of summer going into fall so we’re more likely to need the orange snow ball than water breaks. Without the injured Carles Gil, the team at times struggled to create chances on goal, but they had a few decent attempts, and the defense was solid. Matt Polster, acquired during the tournament, looked pretty good as their defensive midfielder; Andrew Farrell and rookie Henry Kessler might be the team’s best center back pairing right now; and Matt Turner continued making saves when he needed to.

Tuesday, August 25 at DC United – 2-1 W – In this trip to the nation’s capital, New England opened the scoring after Gustavo Bou collected a missed corner kick clearance for his second goal of the season. Shortly after, the game was put on pause for a lightning delay. Upon its return, Teal Bunbury scored a header off an Alexander Buttner corner kick, which turned out to be the game winning goal when DC was awarded a penalty kick in the middle of the second half. Based on how much the Revolution weren’t arguing the decision, it was probably a pretty blatant handball in the box. Again, not a bad performance from the Revolution, but this was their first multigoal game of the season, and a lot of questions remain. (Their last weather-delayed game before this one was their July 4th game in Colorado last year. They also won that game 2-1 as part of their climb out of the basement of the MLS standings, Teal Bunbury had the game-winning goal there as well, and Matt Turner was in goal making great saves. Maybe they should install lightning rods at all the other teams’ stadiums.)

Saturday, August 29 vs. New York Red Bulls – 1-1 T – During the week, new Revolution players Tommy McNamara and Kekuta Manneh joined the team after 10 days of quarantine. McNamara and allocation money were acquired from Houston for Wilfried Zahibo plus a temporary international roster slot while Manneh was a Cincinnati player traded for another temporary international roster spot. So the Revolution gave up a player who wasn’t getting many minutes and international roster slots they weren’t/aren’t using for two players and money. Say what you want about the front office’s penny-pinching ways; their stockpiles of allocation money and roster flexibility do occasionally come in handy. As for the game itself, it wasn’t terrible. In the first half, the Red Bulls scored by breaking down the Revolution defensively, but the Revolution equalized minutes later on a goal from Bou, assisted by Bunbury and Cristian Penilla. The second half was less eventful until the final minutes, when New England pushed for a goal, but it wasn’t enough to scrape out a win. Kessler and Turner continued to look solid, though Andrew Farrell had a bit of an off night; and McNamara saw some minutes and looked okay.

This got longer than I thought it would, so I’ll stop here and return with the final three games of this six-game stretch. Believe it or not; things get ever weirder.

¹So generally teams from states that could be said to not have taken coronavirus as seriously as they should have. (Though it looks like Inter Miami FC and the Houston Dynamo, who share states with Orlando and FC Dallas respectively, aren’t having fans at games.) Maybe also worth noting that FC Dallas was one of the two teams who didn’t play in the Returnament because of positive COVID-19 tests, the other team being Nashville SC, which again plays in a state that falls more on the “what’s the big deal?” side of the coronavirus matter.

²To the (non)surprise of most Revolution fans, New England was knocked out of the Returnament round of 16 by the Philadelphia Union, ending their time in Florida.

#MLSisBack (again): The Returnament

Thanks to expansion and an ever-growing number of MLS teams, the start of the season has crept from the beginning of April to early March to Leap Day. Although this means the more northern teams have to concern themselves with freezing temperatures, winter weather travel delays, and snow, besides the actual playing of soccer, this year it also meant that teams got in the first couple games of the season before the country shut down for coronavirus reasons. In Bruce Arena’s first season opener with the Revolution, New England headed north of the border for the #MapleSyrupDerby with Montreal on Leap Day. With last season’s MVP Carles Gil injured, Teal Bunbury scored the Revolution’s first goal of the season, but Montreal answered with two of their own to secure a 2-1 win.

The next week (Saturday, March 7) New England opened their home season at Gillette with a 1-1 draw to Chicago. Adam Buksa, the team’s newest designated player, scored for the Revolution, which was encouraging. Otherwise, they again gave up a lead while looking not terrible, but not great either. And then things got interesting, by which I mean everything was cancelled and the Revolution unknowingly played their last game for four months.

Over the next couple months, the players and staff joined the millions of Americans Staying Home and Social Distancing. They did soccer drills in their backyards, ran outside appropriately distanced, showed off their piano skills, and gave cooking advice, among other activities. As things settled down, they returned to small group, then full team training, and rumors arose about teams returning to play through a tournament, promptly dubbed the Returnament by fans. All the teams would gather in one location and be tested, cutting down on travel and virus spread. The format was finalized and the location chosen – the ESPN Wide World of Sports complex in Orlando, Florida, where they would have accommodations and sports facilities in one place. Great choice, except that in the weeks leading up to the tournament, coronavirus cases and hospitalizations in Florida were in the process of exploding. But MLS decided not to cancel¹, and 24 of 26 teams made it to the Sunshine State without major incident. FC Dallas and Nashville SC, after receiving multiple positive test results, made the decision to drop out, with their group stage games (which count for the regular season standings) hopefully to be played at some future time.

For the rest of the teams, bubble time began, and at 8 pm on Thursday, July 9th, the Revolution restarted their season with a game against their Maple Syrup Derby friends, the Montreal Impact. This time, with Gil playing, and for the first time ever, three designated players (Gil, Buksa, and Gustavo Bou) on the field together, the Revolution looked, dare I say it, good. The finishing was lacking, but the movement and passing looked better than I’ve seen in a while. Ten minutes into the second half, after several missed chances and wayward shots, Bou turned near the edge of the box to pound a shot past the Montreal goalkeeper. And that’s all it took. Well, that, thirty-five minutes of defending, and a last-minute save from Matt Turner. Which the broadcast, streamed on Twitter (seriously, Twitter), cut off. I wish I was kidding. I should have switched to the Spanish stream, but I didn’t want to expend that much energy translating. So I stuck it out on Twitter. Fortunately, because the English announcers were so bad (not maliciously bad, like blatantly insulting one team or players, just bad), I kept the video from Twitter going and borrowed the audio from Brad Feldman and Charlie Davies commentating for the Revolution on the radio, so I heard the final minutes of the game, even if I didn’t see them. The audio was at least ten seconds behind the video, but this was still preferable to “There’s Bruce Arena. He is wearing . . . a shirt. Here is a player. He has . . . kicked the ball.” Like I said, not good. But the Revolution picked up a 1-0 win to start off their Returnament run, so #NERevs Twitter was temporarily happy.

Eight days later, New England took to the field again against D.C. United. Unlike Montreal, who sat back and allowed the Revolution a lot of possession, D.C. pressed more, but the Revolution held up until early in the second half when Buksa headed a deflected shot into the back of the net. Twenty minutes later, New England reminded their fans that they’re still the Revolution by horribly misplaying a back pass to Turner. A D.C. player swooped in to claim the ball and the goal. Final score: 1-1. This broadcast (on ESPN) was better than the previous game. For one thing, they didn’t cut off the final minutes of stoppage time. For another, they used field noise, so we got to hear the players and coaches yelling at each other, instead of fake, generic crowd noise that was inserted twenty minutes into the game and overpowered the commentators (seriously, that happened too).

For their last Group C game, the Revolution played Toronto FC, at nine am on a Tuesday to avoid the worst of the Florida heat and humidity. Arena rotated a good number of his players and was again without Carles Gil, who was out with the same injury as in preseason. But I guess you don’t win five MLS cups and get to coach the US Men’s National Team for eight years without knowing what you’re doing, because the Revolution looked like they were playing some weird sort of Bruce Arena 4D chess. After a lackluster first half with something like no shots on goal and a few saves from Matt Turner, they went into the halftime break tied at zero. One substitution later, New England came out ready to play. Within minutes, they had multiple shots and chances and continued to push for a goal throughout the half. In the end, they had some near misses, and some close calls at the other end, with a couple penalty claims for added excitement, and the game ended in a pretty fair 0-0 draw.

With that, the Revolution got 5 points for the regular season standings and booked their spot in the round of 16. There’s another two and a half weeks of soccer to go before the tournament final, and then who knows? I don’t know if even MLS knows what they’re going to do, based on the resurgent numbers of cases across large portions of the United States. Even though deaths have (so far) seemed to rise only marginally, full ICUs, ambulance rerouting, the threat of crisis care, overworked medical professionals, and cancelled non-emergency procedures are not the signs of a happy and well-functioning health care system. Maybe we’ll have a 5-game 2020 season? Or move the league to Antarctica? Put all the players in inflatable bumper bubble balls to keep them six feet apart? Rebrand the league as Major League Foosball in Real Life where every player is assigned to a spot on the field and can only move a certain distance laterally?

¹There’s some backlash about MLS and other sports leagues getting rapid-result testing to play games while everyday citizens are waiting over a week for test results to return to essential jobs. However, the way I see it is that the reason sports teams haven’t been able to get back to playing games is because everyone else won’t get their act together, so they should just go on ahead and use their resources to get players tested. Also, the number of tests being done is a relatively small percentage of the total, and what I’ve heard is that leagues are contracting with private companies for testing.

Leap Day

It’s a once-in-four-years opportunity to post on Leap Day, so here goes. I had some errands to take care of, as well as some things I wanted to do, plus a couple more things that kind of needed to get done (like cooking dinner), so I was occupied all day, and now I’m writing this at 11:30 at night.

After breakfast, my day started at the grocery store. I didn’t find anything good in the clearance section, but the chicken I usually get was buy one, get one (of equal or lesser price) free, so I saved 37% on my grocery bill. I returned to my apartment to drop the food off, then immediately headed back out to catch the bus to central campus to return a movie to the library. Michigan’s spring break officially started at noon, so central campus was relatively quiet and I passed by a number of students with suitcases heading toward the transit center to catch the Michigan Flyer to the airport.

At the library, I exchanged my DVD for Captain Marvel and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (a rewatch) and borrowed a couple of books as well. I didn’t buy anything at the Friends of the Library book sale last week, but this week at the bookshop I found a Pixar movies puzzle and picked up a couple mass market sci-fi/fantasy paperbacks from the 1980s. I was looking for ridiculous, so one of them is about breaking Newton’s Third Law with a nice dose of conspiracy and the other is about slaying Morkeleb the dragon. I was really tempted to get the one about a space delinquent in space jail solely because the blurb on the back ended with “but then the space pirates arrived,” but I resisted.

Back at my apartment, I had a grilled cheese sandwich and mandarin oranges for lunch, then baked up a batch of banana walnut muffins both because the bananas were too ripe to eat and when I baked banana muffins a few weeks ago I meant to add walnuts, had the walnuts on the counter, and forgot to put the walnuts in. By the time I finished baking and cleaning the kitchen, it was about 2:45 pm, around time for the Revolution’s first game of their 25th season. On the same day that the MLS season started, the men’s teams of ECAC hockey were finishing their regular season. So I watched the Revolution starting their season, followed by the Cornell men’s hockey team ending theirs, both on ESPN+, where for just $4.99 a month, you too can watch obscure sports that 15 other people care about.

One of those teams gives me high blood pressure. The other is currently USA Today’s number two ranked men’s college hockey team in the nation. Guess which is which. If you need a hint, the Revolution got right back into disappointing their fans by losing to the Montreal Impact 1-2 and Cornell men’s hockey enters playoff season in good form, having defeated Clarkson (ranked #7) 5-1 on senior night. In between games, I practiced for an upcoming concert. In between hockey periods, I cooked/ate dinner, and though the broadcast cuts to commercials during the period breaks, I did hear the Cornell pep band play the first three (of six) verses of the Alma Mater for senior night. After the hockey game, I did another round of dishes, put together a bit of my puzzle, and wrote this post. Good night, and Happy Leap Day.

The Year in Ann Arbor [2019]

Another year in Ann Arbor. For the first time in three years, I did not start January at the airport. Instead, I was already back in Ann Arbor following my Singapore trip. I baked pecan rolls, began my fourth round of TA’ing (second time as a grad student), wandered through the arboretum, practiced for the second band concert of the season, and did research, that thing I’m paid to be doing.

In February, I continued my TA duties and baked a lot – snickerdoodles, brownies, lemon bars, pumpkin cranberry bread, and pumpkin chocolate chip muffins. The Revolution began preseason and got ready to disappoint all their fans as usual, though we didn’t know it for certain then.

March was the month that my family got Netflix. With hundreds of exciting shows and movies to choose from, I have thus far mainly watched The Office and the Great British Bake Off. Things started warming up so I went out on a bike ride on the border to border trail. I also filed my taxes, gave a presentation on COMSOL, and went to see the Detroit Pistons play the Orlando Magic at Little Caesars Arena (they won, 155-98).

To celebrate lab members graduating, we had a lab party in April where we played Pandemic and again saved the world. I attended a harp recital, a piano recital, and a men’s glee club concert. As the weather improved further, I went on bike rides to the botanical garden and along the river, and continued stomping through the arboretum.

I began May by grading the heat and mass final. As soon as I finished, I went downtown to celebrate the end of the semester with lab members and alcohol. In research news, I finally put something in the rheometer. The rest of this exciting month included building a LEGO robot, the first trip to Blank Slate of the season (I got peanut butter cone crunch ice cream, would recommend), mandatory gender/sexual harassment training, a trip to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) to hear the Haydn horn concerto, a rugel-off (two of my coworkers and I all made different versions of rugelach), and a Memorial Day picnic. There was also barn soccer, barefoot soccer, bad soccer (thanks, Revolution), better soccer (thanks, Mike Lapper), and the beginnings of Bruce Arena soccer. The last three are because the Revolution decided that starting the season 2-8-2 (2 wins, 8 losses, 2 draws) was really not good, fired their coach, fired their general manager, and hired Bruce Arena. For a team that never fills up their roster because “roster flexibility” and likes to find “good deals” in the Slovakian fourth division, this was . . . revolutionary. You can read more about spring here and the Revolution here and here.

In June, I went to see Beauty and the Beast put on by a local theater group, it was peony season at the arboretum, and I walked across a pool of cornstarch and water. At the end of the month, friends from Cornell came to visit and we spent four days catching up while also visiting the U of M art museum and natural history museum, escaping from an escape room, making the rounds through Greenfield Village and the Ford Museum, hiking at the Pinckney Recreation Area, and walking through the botanical garden and arboretum. And eating. There was plenty of eating.

Days after my Cornell friends left, another Cornell friend came to visit in July. After spending a couple days in Michigan seeing the DSO and fireworks at Greenfield Village and the Meijer sculpture garden, we headed off for a whirlwind tour of Toronto, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. In Toronto, we saw the Scarborough Bluffs and walked along the lakeshore through Coronation and Trillium Parks, then headed back to the United States via Niagara Falls and viewed the falls from both the Canadian and American sides. We stopped briefly in the Allegheny National Forest before driving on to Dayton to see the prairie where the Wright brothers developed their flyers. Following all the excitement, I returned to research.

August marked the end of summer, but not before I biked to all corners of Ann Arbor because that’s what I do in summer. At the end of the month, my mother came for a visit. We did all the free Ann Arbor things and hung around my apartment. Plus there was research. In case my advisor reads this, I worked very hard every day and did lots of research. End of summer recap here.

Classes started again in September. I enrolled in my last required class, which required coding in Matlab, which I hadn’t touched since my Intro to Computing class my freshman year at Cornell, because real engineers engineers stuck in the 1970s code in Fortran. I made (yet another) trip to Greenfield Village for fall flavor weekends with a friend and her family. With one game to spare, the Revolution clinched their playoff spot. In May they had a 1% chance to make the playoffs.

October was more of the usual. Research, class, band rehearsals, baking, watching TV. There were trips to the arboretum in search of fall colors, bike rides, and a Michigan hockey game against Cornell's ECAC rival Clarkson.

For the first time since I graduated from Cornell, I got to see Cornell hockey when they came to play Michigan State in November. They won. Let’s go red. We had our first band concert of the season, and then I headed to Orlando for AIChE, the annual meeting of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. My coworker and I presented, listened to talks, looked for free food, met up with former labmates, classmates, and professors, and when the conference was over, went to Disney World (Epcot).

Finally, we made it to December. I finished my class, went to Tuba Christmas at the farmer’s market, and took off for home. Once home, I did a lot of sleeping and eating. There was also Jeopardy!, Wegmans, a day trip to Castle Island/Boston, Star Wars – The Rise of Skywalker, jigsaw puzzles, reading, and baking – cranberry/white chocolate/macadamia nut cookies, cream puffs, and a cake. And that was 2019.

A Little Night Magic, part 2

The magic of the US Open Cup is that hypothetically, any soccer team in the United States could win it. In reality, the only non-division one team to ever win is the 1999 Rochester Rhinos, but the possibility is there, and weird things happen every year. Last year, the Revolution under Brad Friedel crashed out in the first round where MLS teams entered the bracket (round 4 overall). Not only did they lose after assuring fans they were taking the Open Cup very seriously, but they did so to a lower division team. This year, they once again assured fans they were taking the Open Cup very seriously (every team does this every year), and (spoiler alert) did not lose in the first round to the New York Red Bulls.

They looked like they were going to lose. It started off well enough, with Juan Agudelo scoring in just the second minute to put the Revolution up a goal early. After that, besides a Juan Fernando Caicedo shot off the crossbar, they didn’t threaten the Red Bulls much while allowing two goals, one on either side of halftime. However, they didn’t roll over and give up, their standard mode of operation after surrendering leads during the past couple years. They stayed organized and didn’t look desperate, which usually leads to them pressing too high and too hard, rushing passes, shooting like they’re aiming for the next county, and letting the other team run up the score.

They still couldn’t get the tying goal, and things looked like they were on the way from bad to worse when Jalil Anibaba fouled a Red Bulls player in the box. Penalty kick awarded with no hesitation from the ref. But then. The Red Bulls player steps up to the ball. Takes the shot. And Matt Turner makes the save.¹ Game on. The Revolution keep playing their game, and in the eighty-fifth minute, Teal Bunbury brings down a pass from Wilfried Zahibo nicely. His first touch takes him inside the defender. His shot doesn’t go out for a throw in, it’s on frame, and in fact it rolls nicely into the back of the net. Just like that, the game is tied and goes into extra time, but not before Luis Caicedo picks up a second yellow card in second half stoppage time, because otherwise this wouldn’t be the Revolution.

Somehow the Revolution come out of the break looking okay. There’s some truth that teams playing down a man are hard to break down because everyone defends more, so there is hope that they’ll take the game to penalty kicks. But this is the Open Cup, so in the 109th minute, Bunbury (yes, him again), collects a bad turnover from the Red Bulls and takes off down the left sideline. There’s a defender with him, and another defender makes it back to help out as Bunbury has the ball in the corner of the box. Neither defender moves to take the ball away from him. Naturally, he decides to chip the ball in between them both and over the goalkeeper to score the game-winning goal and send New England to the next round of the Open Cup. They would lose to Orlando in extra time the next week, ending their 2019 Open Cup run, but that night in New Jersey was a little bit of the magic the Revolution have been missing.

¹The last time Turner made a penalty kick save was the 2018 home opener against Colorado. In that game, his save maintained a 1-1 game so that Chris Tierney, coming on as a substitute late in the game, could score the game-winning goal on a stoppage time free kick. It was Tierney’s last goal or assist as a Revolution player. Two months later, he tore his ACL, and retired at the end of the season. [Tierney is from Wellesley, MA, was selected in the 2008 Supplemental Draft, and played his entire eleven-season career for the Revolution. He was best known for his left foot and scoring the late goal in the 2014 MLS cup final against the Galaxy that sent the game into extra time. The fans like him.]

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.

#HereWeGoAgain

Back in March, MLS and the Revolution began their 24^th season of soccer. After multiple seasons of rebuilding and feeling like they could fall off the tracks at any time, the Revolution completely derailed with an abysmal 2-8-2 record to start the 2019 season. It started almost promisingly, with a road tie in Dallas to open the season, but that was followed by losses to Columbus, Toronto, and Cincinnati. They were outscored 8-3 in their first four games, and the only Revolution player to score was new signing Carles Gil who (spoiler alert) still looks really good halfway through the season.

In their last game of March, the Revolution finally picked up their first win of the season against Minnesota and looked semi-competent while doing so. Jalil Anibaba scored from service from Gil that New England’s been missing, and Brandon Bye spared Teal Bunbury from adding to his tally of shots that go out for throw ins [yes, throw ins, not goal kicks (he’s at three for the season)] by redirecting a wide shot into the back of the net. Alas, they followed that performance by losses to Columbus (again) and Atlanta before picking up their second win of the season against the Red Bulls. Cristian Penilla got his first goal of the season, and Cody Cropper registered the team’s first shutout.

And then here’s where things got really crazy. First, the Revolution travelled to Montreal to lose 3-0. Next, they travelled to Kansas City to get a 4-4 result in which newcomer Juan Fernando Caicedo got two goals, Bye was sent off for a second yellow card for a poorly thought out tackle, Sporting Kansas City (SKC) was awarded a weak penalty on a foul in the box, the Revolution were given a weak penalty five minutes later for a handball in the box, Gil missed the penalty, rookie DeJuan Jones scored on the rebound, former Rev Krisztian Nemeth scored a brace (side note – he looks good at SKC), and Anibaba was sent off for another unadvisable tackle. So the Revolution finished the game with four goals, nine men on the field, and a point.

They continued their time on the road at the Philadelphia Union and Chicago Fire, where they proceeded to underwhelm even the very underwhelmed Revolution fanbase’s expectations by losing 6-1 and 5-0 in a span of five days. The defense, instead of being simply bad, was awful. Paul Mariner, their color commentator, accused them of not doing things high school soccer teams know to do. The offense, instead of being simply anemic, was appalling. Getting shots on goal going three miles an hour straight at the goalkeeper was an accomplishment.

To the shock of the fanbase, instead of limping like a wounded animal to the end of the season, within a week they fired their coach Brad Friedel, fired longtime general manager Mike Burns, and hired Bruce Arena as head coach and sporting director. And this is where I’ll leave things off for now.

#ThatsAllForNowFolks [October 2018]

Last month of the Revolution’s 2018 season, which means no playoffs for them. Again.

October 6, 2018, at Atlanta United, 2-1 L
This was the game with the absolutely unbearable announcers. I knew it was a nationally televised match, but for the first twenty minutes or so, I thought they were broadcasting Atlanta United’s feed because the announcers would not shut up about Atlanta United. It was worse than the time the Kansas City announcers wouldn’t stop going on about the turf at Gillette Stadium. Worse than the NYCFC broadcast that kept cutting away from the ball every time the Revolution had possession to show NYCFC players on the bench. After the first goal (complete with GOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAALLLLL call, which, to be fair, the announcer also did for the Revolution’s late goal), I switched to watching the muted video stream and listening to the Revolution’s radio call with a 2-3 minute lag. As for the game itself, the Revolution played with the intent of not losing by a lot of goals, which is not how you win games. Juan Agudelo picked up the late consolation goal in the second minute of stoppage time.

October 13, 2018, vs. Orlando City SC, 2-0 W
Was away for this game and missed it, but the Revolution picked up another home win. Cristian Penilla and Diego Fagundez scored their twelfth and eighth goals of the season respectively. Orlando is another team that struggled in 2018, but these are the kind of games the Revolution historically, bizarrely, can’t win. See the tie against a 2-win San Jose team earlier in the season.

October 18, 2018, at Real Salt Lake, 4-1 L
This was basically the Toronto game again. They went down early, stayed down, and when they had a chance to start a comeback, Nick Rimando saved a Teal Bunbury penalty kick. Which isn’t that surprising¹, but that’s the kind of game it was. Kelyn Rowe got his first goal of the season to close out the scoring for the night.

¹According to the MLS website², Rimando has faced 32 unsuccessful penalty kick attempts out a total of 88 taken against him, which is more than 36%, double or close to double the typical miss rate for penalty kicks. Besides that ridiculous percentage, the number of unsuccessful penalties against him is more than the total number of penalties all but the top dozen or so MLS goalkeepers have faced.

²mlssoccer.com, which belongs in the ranks of PIN numbers and ATM machines. This is what happens when you don’t found your league until 1996 and the Multiple Listing Service exists.

October 28, 2018, vs. Montreal Impact, 1-0 W
For the second year in a row, New England ended their season by playing Montreal. Last year they were spared the indignity of not winning a single road game with a late goal from Rowe to earn a 3-2 victory. This year, the big story was Fagundez scoring to secure the win as well as pick up his 50th MLS regular season goal. He’s the youngest player to do so (the second youngest is Landon Donovan) and the third Revolution player after Taylor Twellman and Lee Nguyen.

Record for October: 2W-2L-0D
Overall record: 10W-13L-11D

At the end of the season, it came down to not winning enough games. For all Brad Friedel’s talk, he ended 2018 with less points than New England finished with in 2017 (41 vs. 45). His 10W-13L-11D record is about the same as the 13W-15L-6D from Jay Heaps’ last season with the team, and although early on it looked like they might have better balance between their home and away records, they weren’t as good at home in 2018 and they still only won 2 games on the road. I don’t think it’s entirely Friedel’s fault, and I don’t think a revolving door of coaches is the solution to all the Revolution’s woes, though there are some concerning comments from the players about the first-year coach. I’m interested to see how next season goes, but I’m not sure I’m even cautiously optimistic about it. More like keeping optimism in a box in the back of the closet where it can be dragged out if things start going well and are still going well in mid-October or so. Here’s to the end of the 2018 New England Revolution season and the start of the 2019 season, another year of dreaming of 20-goal DPs, stadium deals, and MLS cup.

#DumpsterFire [September 2018]

The title speaks for itself.

September 1, 2018, vs. Portland Timbers, 1-1 T
The first half of this game was shaping up to be a repeat of the Sounders game in July where nothing happened, but then slightly more happened. Scott Caldwell scored his first goal of the season off a rebound from the Timbers goalkeeper after a Kelyn Rowe shot. Not sure if the goal was the highlight or if finding out that his goal song is “Party in the USA” was. The Timbers then equalized from a corner kick. Again, never heard that one before. It was almost cleared off the line, but almost isn’t good enough. Rowe looked pretty good in central midfield, and Juan Agudelo got minutes in the second half. It was another mixed performance from Agudelo – half of the time he holds up the ball and nutmegs defenders, and the other half the ball comes to him and the game physically slows down because he comes to a complete stop to decide what he’s going to do, then he dribbles straight into three defenders.

September 5, 2018, at New York City FC, 0-1 W
For all everyone complains about the Revolution having to play on turf, there is something not quite right about NYCFC’s field, besides the fact that it’s a baseball diamond (they play at Yankee Stadium). The ball did not seem to bounce correctly, and the field feels tiny, though Wikipedia says it’s only 5 yards smaller in length and width than Gillette (110 yds. x 70 yds. vs. 115 yds. x 75 yds., which equals a loss in area of ~10%). The camera crew also kept showing artistic overview shots from strange angles and if I remember right, this was the game where they cut away to closeups of NYCFC players sitting on the bench while the Revolution had the ball multiple times. The non-soccer aspects notwithstanding, the Revolution kept themselves in the game long enough for Brian Wright to capitalize on a rebound to hand NYCFC their first home loss this season. With Wright’s first MLS goal and a shutout from Brad Knighton, who took Matt Turner’s place in goal, New England won for the first time in two months. Would this be the start of another late season playoff push? [Spoiler alert: no.]

September 15, 2018, at Los Angeles Football Club, 1-1 T
In the Revolution’s first trip to California to play LAFC, the air was filled with the drama known as the Lee Nguyen saga. Predictions from Revolution Twitter included all variants of New England being destroyed by not only Nguyen, but also similarly-former Rev Benny Feilhaber. Shockingly enough, neither Nguyen nor Feilhaber scored or even seriously threatened the Revolution. LAFC’s goal was a Revolution “we can’t clear the ball out of the box” special, and Brandon Bye picked up his first MLS goal on a header from a Teal Bunbury cross to equalize late. Not terrible from the Revolution, but still not enough.

September 22, 2018, vs. Chicago Fire, 2-2 T

Another one of those games where the Revolution are kind of in it but not really. Chicago went ahead twice, the second time on a Michael Mancienne own goal¹, and Caldwell and Penilla salvaged the draw. New signing Guillermo Hauché made his debut and looked fine. Hauché is the Revolution’s new exciting goal scorer who has never scored a professional goal. File that one under the Most Revs Things to Happen, along with stadium rumors, blind draws, terrible DP signings, and weird vibes.

¹It was bound to happen sooner or later. He’d had about three close calls in his past four games and the Revolution fanbase was just waiting for it to happen.

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same, September 29, 2018, at Toronto FC, 4-1 L
With the playoffs basically (but not mathematically) out of reach, the Revolution chose this time to self-implode. Penilla opened the scoring for the Revolution, then they proceeded to let Toronto back into the game before the half. It was all downhill from there. The ref even gave the Revolution a chance to pull themselves together by calling a Toronto goal back because of offsides, but the Revolution basically said no thank you and let Toronto score three more times before the final whistle. I’ve stopped being horribly bothered about them losing, but they played like they didn’t care. All I want is to watch some soccer.

In September, the Revolution went 1W-1L-3D for an overall record of 8W-11L-11D. Their goal scorers were the following: Brian Wright, Scott Caldwell (x2), Brandon Bye, and Cristian Penilla (x2). Two recent Superdraft picks who opened their MLS accounts, a central defensive midfielder, and the team’s leading scorer. So the forwards are mostly not scoring and the defensive isn’t defending. And people wonder why this team has problems.

#SummerSlump, part 2 [August 2018]

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.

#SummerSlump [July 2018]

Revolution fans from the Jay Heaps tenure will know exactly what this means. Every year under Jay Heaps, the Revolution would have a disappointing to moderately encouraging start to the season, only to forget how to play soccer during the summer months. I want to point out here that I’m not trying to disparage or blame any of the players or coaching staff, just point out the team’s bizarrely streaky play during the summer.

In 2012, Heaps’ first year, the team went winless for ten games between July 14 and September 1, including 5 straight losses during this period. The next year, they actually seem to have avoided the summer slump, starting with only one win in the first six games, but never losing more than two games in a row the entire season. During 2014, the Revolution went eight straight games without a win from May 31 to July 26, but then came into form in time to go all the way to the MLS cup final to lose a record fifth final, this time to the Galaxy.

In 2015, they lost five straight from June 25 to July 11, but shortly after rallied to win six straight in August and September. In 2016, after drawing 7 of their first 10 games, the Revolution went from July 31 to August 28 (6 games) without winning. Then last year, they stumbled through the majority of the season, needing a strong fall performance to make the playoffs. Instead, they were murdered by Atlanta and Orlando within the span of two weeks. Heaps was fired, Brad Friedel was brought in during the offseason, and the first half of the 2018 season happened, which brings us to this July.

July 7, 2018, vs. Seattle Sounders, 0-0 T
Not a whole lot happened in this game, which you can kind of tell from the scoreline. It took seventy-three minutes before there was a shot on goal – a forty-yard attempt from Seattle that Matt Turner took care of by basically standing there and letting the ball fall into his arms. Even the Revolution social media team acknowledged the lack of excitement by posting a highlights video featuring kickoff, streamers, the final whistle, and postgame fireworks. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Tear my heart out, why don’t you?, July 14, 2018, vs. Los Angeles Galaxy, 2-3 L
This game, maybe more than any of the other games so far this season, captures the spirit of being a Revolution fan since 2008. After losing Cristian Penilla to a red card 23 minutes into the game, the Revolution went up a goal in the 28th minute. The Galaxy tied the game, but New England took the lead again shortly before the first half ended. They were moving the ball well and looked good up through around minute 75. It’s a lot to ask to be playing down a man and keep pressing, but the Revolution were doing it. Then in minute 85, the Galaxy’s Ashley Cole was baited into a second yellow and sent off. What the Revolution should have done was take the time to regroup, settle down, and prepare to play hard for up to ten more minutes. What they did was go into panic mode, watch the clock, and let momentum shift to the Galaxy. In the second minute of second half stoppage time, LA got a corner kick. I’ve been following this team for awhile, so my first thought was (depressingly enough) if they let in a goal on this set piece, they’ve lost the game. LA scored on the corner kick. In the third minute of second half stoppage time, after the restart, the Revolution were too casual with possession on the right sideline, lost the ball, and that’s how the Galaxy scored their third, and game-winning, goal.

Hey, Bobby, July 18, 2018, at Minnesota United FC, 2-1 L
Anything that happened in this match was ultimately overshadowed by the fact that former Revolution goalkeeper Bobby Shuttleworth chose this night to have the best game New England’s seen from him in awhile. To be fair to Shuttleworth, I liked him when he played for New England. You can’t say that he wasn’t invested in the game. He just inexplicably had this habit of letting in long shots while making ridiculous reaction saves. Also of note were a couple of Scott Caldwell shots, including a one touch outside of the foot attempt that was bound for the back of the goal if (guess who) Shuttleworth hadn’t showed up to make the save.

I Give Up, July 21, 2018, vs. New York Red Bulls, 0-2 L
Missed this game because I was playing board games with people from church. Can’t bring myself to watch the replay.

We’ll see what happens in August, but history is not on the Revolution’s side.

Record for July: 0W-3L-1D
Overall record: 7W-7L-7D