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| New England, in off-season. |
[Standing Disclaimer: While I have watched…just a stupid amount of MLS over the years, I don’t watch the vast majority of games, never mind all of them. As such, it’s fair to take anything below that isn’t a hard number or a physical trophy as an impression, a couple steps removed.]
Thumbnail History
I moved to Boson in 1998, the same season I consciously uncoupled from DC United (successful teams don’t challenge you enough) and embraced the New England Revolution as my team. The Wooden Spoon stung their bums for the one and only time at the end of that very season and, to be clear, I was not surprised. I watched them try to squeeze star-power out of Darren Sawatzky, fer crissakes. How could I have known that the New England Revolution would go on to contest four MLS Cups in six years a mere three seasons later? Sure, they missed the playoffs two more times (the 90s were not gentle) before they established themselves as MLS’s Second Most Menacing Team and, obviously, all four of those trips to MLS ended in a disappointment and with soccer’s equivalent of a side of syphilis, but I bumbled into backing the right horse, regardless. Against the back drop of everything that came before, the 2002 MLS Cup run almost certainly felt like a fluke (bit fuzzy here; courting the wife, becoming a stepfather that season), but, for every fucking MLS Cup between 2005 and 2007, the Revolution walked onto the field with a very real shot at, and expectation of, winning. Never happened, of course, as New England lost every one and they remain the Buffalo Bills of MLS to this day, the bridesmaid to everyone else’s bride, etc. For me, none of those losses hurt like the 2006 final and, for all that I firmly believe that exploring the trauma sports fans experience when their team loses is the greatest possible waste of time for any and all therapists’ time, I do consider that loss formative to how I “enjoy” soccer to this day (i.e., never get too close). To their very real credit, the Revolution has never stopped trying since that stab straight through the fucking heart. They returned to MLS Cup the very next season…and lost again, to the same fucking team (the Houston Dynamo), only in regulation that time. They returned to MLS Cup again in 2014…which they lost to a different team (peak Los Angeles Galaxy that time), but at least they made it to extra-time in that one. And yet they picked themselves up again- if after missing the playoffs for three consecutive seasons (again), and after a couple seasons of “making the playoffs” (i.e., if you die after your first step in the door…?) – right after that, they produced the greatest regular season in MLS history. That happened in 2021. The record still stands, but I’d argue for a deeper truth about that record: the Revolution earned it with their third very capable team in franchise history. I have no doubt that all of the times they’ve fallen short stings every die-hard Revolution fan like a swarm of hornets, but, as well as the “bridesmaids” thing holds up, New England are kinda sorta the masters of the rebuild. They have been successful. They're the 10th most-successful team in MLS history on the Joy Points Scale (see end of post for methodology*).
Best Season(s)
Of course, I have to say the record-setting Supporters’ Shield winning season, but I have massive fucking respect for the Revolution team that shook off the shock of the 2006 MLS Cup loss and made it back to MLS Cup 2007. They’d lost Clint Dempsey’s combination of goals and a beating competitive heart by then, but that team rallied, put their collective heads down, and got shit done…well, until the second half of MLS Cup 2007. To think they went into halftime up 1-0 and on a goal by Taylor Twellman to boot. Those were the...ddddaaaaaaaaaaaayyyysss!
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| Photo/reference, after the jump. |
Long-Term Tendencies
The first number to stand out: the Revolution have had a positive goal differential (of any kind) just ten times in their 28-year-history. If you throw in the season they broke even (i.e., they had no goal differential (2002, fwiw)), that total bumps to eleven times. Against that, they had two seasons with a +1 goal differential, which feels like a rounding error to zero in my mind. At any rate, what caused that, historically? A long, proud history of stuttering attacks: 19 of 28 season saw them either average or the wrong side it for goals scored – if with the balance of ‘em clustered in those early, futile seasons - also, don’t look to those average performances to save them because they only managed that minor feat three times. That’s the failures, but what about the successes? Most often, though not always, the Revs forged their best season with a potent attack. Often as not, though not always – and this applies more to their glory years in the Aughts – New England needed a strong attack to cover for a leaky defense. Even in their Shield season, it was an over-(over-)performing offense that lifted them into the record books.
Identity: Covered above: MLS's second-most menacing team or very mighty bridesmaids
Joy Points: 12, i.e., still very respectable. Shit gets dark in, like, four posts.
10 Names to Know
Mike Burns/Ted Chronopoulus/Walter Zenga
You know how they show a player from each team when they plug an upcoming game on TV? Over the first four or five seasons, the TV people would have used one of those three players (or a redhead’s name I refuse to type) for the Revolution’s star player. That’s as close as TV gets to saying, "this team is boring, surely you have something better to do this afternoon."
Steve Ralston
New England picked him up in the Dispersal Draft after the (frankly fucking terrifying) contraction season of 2001 (so this is going into 2002). Ralson would go on to become the all-time assist leader in MLS – at least until Landon Donovan pipped him by one assist before he retired. The man could flight crosses like guided missiles. Moreover, there were seasons, before and after the Revs’ more famous names arrived, where injury compelled Ralston to carry the entire attack – which he did more than once. One of the true greats from MLS 2.0. (Also, my wife always called him “Purina,” which I’ve never fully understood, but, because I live with her and not him...)
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| With respect to them both, of course. |
I think of him as Brian McBride’s mini-me. He became a wrecking-ball in the area by sheer force of will and has the concussions to prove it – which to his very real credit, he took seriously both then and now. Twellman scored over 100 goals for New England by the time he hung up his boots; Ralston had plenty of targets, but Twellman was made for them. Also, yes, leaving Pat Noonan off this list felt weird/wrong.
Matt Reis
Easily one of the best goalkeepers of his generation MLS. He back-stopped the Revs’ defense during their best era (missing trips to MLS Cup on either side, incidentally) and still turned in the hands-down, stop-the-voting best-ever player intro in any sport ever, of all time, the end.
Clint Dempsey
Another favorite target for Ralston – again, Dempsey remains one of the hungriest, most-driven American players I’ve ever seen – but he was a more complete player than Twellman (i.e., he played as a No. 8 plenty of times for New England and was deadly on late runs). The career he launched with the Revs couldn’t help but draw notice – which gets to why played more games in the Premier League than he played in MLS.
Michael Parkhurst
The gentlemen’s central defender, smart, smooth on the ball, perhaps even continental (wait, what? he’s 5’ 11”?). He spent just four seasons with the Revs before moving on to (allegedly) better things (c’mon, Denmark is JV Europe), but New England went to MLS Cup in three of them. My research tells me that he anchored up the Revs’ all-time best defensive seasons (i.e,. 2005 and 2006, the only time in their history they went “very under” the MLS average for goals allowed). Very much related...
Shalrie Joseph
I’m wrapping up New England’s best seasons with Joseph because he was both the beating heart of the Revs’ mid-2000s midfields and arguably the best two-way midfielder in MLS during the same period. Strong, smart, and with plenty of attacking upside, I’d call the Portland Timbers’ Diego Chara the closest analog when it comes to swallowing the middle of the pitch. They played different styles, but ended at the same outcome.
Andrew Farrell
Farrell strikes me as the best symbol for New England’s general rule of starting good-but-not-great defenders. It feels like he’s been there since 1996 and will remain with them till the Sun explodes (fact-check: he joined New England in 2013), but I’ve always viewed Farrell as a player who over-delivers on expectations. He has never been MLS’s best center-back, but he improves year-on-year like a real student of his craft. He’s also a conundrum – i.e., it would make sense for the Revs to find a better center-back, but they’d be fucking crazy to risk it, if Portland traded for him I’d think they were huffing paint, etc. He contains multitudes. I fucking love this player.
Carles Gil
I’d say Jose Cancela started the tradition (or, if you wanna get real weird about it, you can call back to Edwin Gorter), but the only other team I’d rank with New England when it comes to finding and landing a game-changing playmaker is Columbus Crew SC. Gil stands at the pinnacle of the Revs’ success story. One of the current, “is-there-anything-he-can’t-do” attacking players in MLS, even if he assists (a lot) more than he scores.
Where They Finished in 2023 & What the Past Says About That, If Anything
What with all the weirdness going on with Bruce Arena’s mystery firing, New England had a weird one (also, does anyone know what he did/said to this day?). For all that chaos, the Revs did fine; St. Louis CITY FC excepted, they collected more points than every team in the Western Conference, which was only good for fifth in the West…and yet, one has to believe that whatever good feelings came from that evaporated once they got swept in the first (full) round of the playoffs by the Philadelphia Union – who, for the record, did not reach MLS Cup. Some reasonable questions about their 2023 season remain – e.g., would they have been better with a whole and healthy Dylan Borrero? – but, as I look at it, I still see a strong overall roster on their official site.
Notes/Impressions on the Current Roster/State of Ambition
As implied by the master-builder image, and despite Bob “Happy Endings” Kraft’s serial failure to give this good team the home(/stadium) they fully deserve (being a Revs fan means waiting for a Christmas that never arrives), the Revs keep building not just good, competitive teams, but intriguing ones. Every team in MLS should be so lucky. As for the current bunch, I keep hearing chatter about them losing Noel Buck – who I see as having very real upside, for the record – but I also see impressive up-and-comers like Jack Panayotou, Esmir Bajraktarevic, and Damian Rivera who, while not like-for-like, have equivalent, if different, upsides. Seeing them add smart pieces like Dave Romney, Jonathan Mensah, Nick Lima and (perhaps arguably) Mark-Anthony Kaye tells me that, whatever I think about who they should be signing, the Revs have never stopped chasing The Dream.
* Joy Point Index
Winning the CONCACAF Champions’ League: 5 points
Claiming Supporters’ Shield : 4 points
Winning MLS Cup: 3 points
MLS Cup Runner-Up: 2 points
Winning the U.S. Open Cup: 2 points
Winning CONCACAF Champions Cup: 2 points
MLS Is Back Cup: 2 points (yeah, yeah, I’m a Timbers fan; still, that was a tough one)
CONCACAF Champions League Semifinalist: 1 point
Making the Playoffs: 1 point
Missing the Playoffs: -1 point
Missing Playoffs in 1996-97, 2002-2004 (when 80% of the league qualified): - 2 points
Wooden Spoon: -3 points
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