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| Holy shit. That is a fucking cast. |
The post ends with a scale I came up with to measure the long-term success of every team in Major League Soccer. It does some things well (e.g., count trophies/achievements), other things less well (capture recent trends). It's called the Joint Points Scale and you can find a link that explains what it does. I was really stoned when I came up with the scale and wrote the post. Caveat lector. With that...
Thumbnail History
I moved to Boson in 1998, the same season I consciously uncoupled from DC United (successful teams don’t challenge you enough as a fan) and embraced the New England Revolution. The Wooden Spoon stung their bums for the one and only time in their history at the end of that very season. Fortunately, for both me and them, New England became one of the first teams to crack the post-contraction code and that made them the Second Most Menacing Team in MLS for pretty much every season between 2002 and 2007. To be clear, not all of those MLS Cup runs were created equal: with Taylor Twellman and MLS iron-man/assist-king Steve Ralston in the starting XI, the 2002 roster had the beginnings of the Revs’ real glory seasons, but it took additions like Matt Reis in goal, Michael Parkhurst and Jay Heaps leading the back line, plus Shalrie Joseph dominating midfield to transform the Revolution into a team that could win any given game. Putting a team like that into the playoffs season after season (e.g., from 2002-2009) gave them plenty of chances to win it all. Which, again, they did not. To get a little personal, none of those losses kicked me like the 2006 final and, firmly as believe that spectator sports cannot deliver trauma worth even five minutes of therapy, I do consider that loss formative to how I “enjoy” soccer to this day (i.e., never get too close). The Revs’ history tells a familiar tale from there – you know the drill, players leaving the team one by one, new players coming in who don’t check the entire box, a once-reliable coach sticking around past his sell-by date, etc. – and several rough years followed…and then came the 2014 season. New England had made the playoffs the season before, sure, but they fielded not just a young team, but one that had mainly proved itself in MLS. It started with Andrew Farrell in defense, but continued up the spine with Scott Caldwell in central midfield and Kelyn Rowe and Lee Nguyen running the midfield. That basic line-up got a boost of nitrous in the person and personality of U.S. Men’s National Team adoptee, Jermaine Jones, who came in as a late-season addition and girded every loin he could bark into shape. And all of those budding youngsters promised a brighter future…until they very abruptly didn’t. The Revolution sulked back into the wilderness for fives seasons after 2014 – I mean, they didn’t do shit – but caught up to the new way of doing things by the 2021 season. Part of that relied on calling in new designated players – the (cliché alert) mercurial Gustavo Bou and one of MLS’s latter-day greats, Carles Gil – but the other half relied on spotting some of the best North American talent of the current generation – e.g., Matt Turner (goalkeeper) and Tajon Buchanan (full/wingback) lead that bunch, but Henry Kessler and DeJuan Jones are nothing to sniff at. That team benefitted from the wisdom of MLS Svengali, Bruce Arena, and leaned on a spine of some old-guard regulars – i.e., Farrell and long-time MLS-above-averager, Matt Polster, but it took a second generation of budding talent to lift the 2021 Revolution team to the then-regular season record for points earned in MLS history. That record was broken just three years later by Inter Miami CF. In 2024 (see same link). Oh, and they beat the Revs head-to-head when they did it. Straight up pillaging.
Sour grapes notwithstanding, the New England Revolution’s history can be read in one of two ways: first, as the team that failed to win MLS Cup over fives times or trying, second, as a team that has put together one of the great all-time MLS teams (the 2002-07 era), plus two more that either found or tickled the bubbly underbelly of success. Maybe they’re bridesmaids, but New England are also kinda sorta the masters of the rebuild.
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| Don't knock it till you try it... |
I watch this team more than most (old habits, etc.) and, with bias clearly playing some kind of role, I read the Revs as a team with a shot at getting things together for some kind of run. Not a great run, by any times, but just enough to keep them in the conversation. Sure, they died over the first month (or so) of 2025 - playing the East’s (then-)best (e.g., Columbus and Philly) made sense of it - but both April and May supported the brightside theory well enough. I noticed something else around that same time: Carles Gil carried them – like more than one typically sees – but some good early moments out of Ignatius Ganago, Leo Campana coming on board (did okay in limited minutes, fwiw), and a pair of flying young fullbacks in Peyton Miller and Ilay Feingold threw enough data behind the case for a turnaround to keep things on hold for a month or two. A brutal mid-summer drought knocked the case over and kicked their dad in the shins on the way out the door; New England went 0-7-2 over the months of June and July to the point where only a miracle could get them into the playoffs and nothing short of God smiting the rest of the East could get them near a trophy. Despite it all, Gil still had a season any fan would cheer (10 goals, 14 assists, but the attacking infrastructure he needed never coalesced. Injuries took their pound of flesh, for starters – Campana started just 20 games, Tomas Chancalay a mere 12 – Luca Langoni had his moments, but not enough of them. With a defense that couldn’t rise above (literal, perfect) average, New England needed a high-scoring team. They got Carles Gil & [Pending] instead.
Long-Term Tendencies v Recent Trends
Goals For: a lot more under than over; Goals Against: a lot more over than under
One number stands out: the Revolution have scored above the league-wide average just nine times over their 29-season history; they managed a positive goal differential (of any kind) just ten times over a period that spans their entire existence (2025, another "no"). Things look even worse when viewed from the other side: the Revs have defended better than league average for goals allowed just seven times. They have lived and died by their attack, basically, and their good offensive seasons haven’t always coincided with their strong defensive seasons; only the 2005 and 2021 seasons saw all the stars align, and 2014 may count as the only time the defense actually carried them (and an average attack). Small wonder they have only experienced the “aftertaste of glory.” Even in their Shield season, it was an over-(over-)performing offense that lifted them into the record books. Pulling back the lens a little, New England has a curious detail in their recent (since 2009) history: they hit (roughly) three-season slumps followed by three seasons of doing good or better – i.e., the seasons of 2010-2012 and 2016-2018, followed by 2013-2015 (with a (losing) trip to MLS Cup in 2014), then 2019-2021 (with an historic season and a Supporters' Shield for a send-off). Here’s the (or a) thing: the Revs missed the post-season in both 2024 and 2025; they made it in 2023, but missed in 2022; so, did the successful 2023 disrupt the cycle, or will 2026 be the third year in a leap-season for the Revs’ triennial shit-cycle?
Players I Still Like/Additions So Far
Gil’s getting up there, but, goddamn, does he keep delivering. As insinuated above, New England/Gil need help on both sides of the ball and, the deservedly kind words for Polster above duly noted, central midfield looked like a real issue in every game I watched last season. As much as I see both Alhassan Yusuf and Polster as reliable-to-good players, I saw them chasing around the defensive third, again, every game I watched. So, yeah, I’d flag that as an area for concern. Some of last season’s proposed attacking solutions – i.e., Chancalay and Ganago – checked out in the early off-season (little shocked Minnesota took Chancalay, but that’s a whole story). They lost Brandon Bye to free agency/my Portland Timbers, but he barely clocked over 1,000 minutes last season, something that only reminds me how much I liked Miller and Feingold. Fwiw, I think new head coach Marko Mitrovic (who I know nothing about) has the bones of a good team, if only so long as Gil retires or gets (actually) replaced, which will break bad or good depending. Against that, they have a lot of positions to fill with real talent if they want any real hope of going anywhere. By my math at least.
Historical Success (/Hysterical Failure)
Total Joy Points: 24
How They Earned Them (& How This Is Calculated, for Reference)
Supporters’ Shield: 2021
MLS Cup Runner-Up: 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2014
MLS Playoffs Semifinals: 2003, 2004, 2020
MLS Playoffs/Quarterfinals: 1997, 2000, 2008, 2009, 2013
Wooden Spoon: 1998
CCL Quarterfinals: 2022, 2024
U.S. Open Cup: 2007
U.S. Open Cup Runner-Up: 2001, 2016
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