Portland Timbers 2-1 New England Revolution, The Late (Late), but Still Pretty Good Show

Treat yourself!

Just rewatched the full highlights and think I heard something about both the Portland Timbers and the New England Revolution rolling into Saturday on unbeaten streaks. Sound salesmanship, but also inaccurate.

Still, the most affirming talking point about the Timbers in 2025 is the fact that, unfortunate trips to the North side of the Great Lakes region notwithstanding (one for your therapist or for your priest, depending on one’s outward reaction), Portland has improved on winning more of the games they should win. Hosting a Revolution team running (currently) four points under the Eastern Conference play-in line definitely makes the list and – drink ‘em if you got ‘em – Portland won this one. As for how they looked doing it.

Portland Timbers 2-1 New England Revolution
About the Game, Briefly
Given the past three or four weeks, just seeing Portland start as the better team counts as a l’il victory (so treat yourself!). They crowned that period of…let’s go with subtle dominance with a go-ahead goal that, all things considered, took a couple happy accidents to come together. That’s not to dismiss (or diss) the goal – the Timbers put together a might chain of “yes, and” to create the opening – but I doubt Santiago Moreno consciously weighted his cross to fall to Ian Smith (who didn’t line up where they had him…right?) and I bet Smith only hits side netting on that same shot once in every half dozen attempts (but prove me wrong, kid; prove me wrong). Now, the worrying thing…

The Revolution equalized 15 minutes later and in a way that highlighted one of Portland’s regular weaknesses (see Stray No. 5), but I was less concerned by that than how close Portland came to stumbling into a five-minute fall apart, i.e., one of those back-to-back goal, multi-goal, bed-shitting breakdowns that sees a game slip away from a team. Just two (or three) minutes after Luca Langoni finished around a firmly-seated Kamal Miller, New England’s Peyton Miller teed up Leo Campana for a simple, short finish that would have handed them the lead. Per the final score, Campana skied it, thereby sparing Portland from chasing the game.

FC Cincinnati 1-0 New England Revolution: Notes on Transitory State

"Dude, my balls were swimming by the 10th."

Don’t expect any co-workers to excitedly ask whether you caught the big FC Cincinnati game yesterday, never mind brag about seeing live and in persona at the Big Tickle. None of that means the 1-0 win they picked up over the New England Revolution wasn’t a good thing, so much as questions about whether it means anything beyond three useful points.

About the Game
The two teams played a slippery bastard, what with the rain pouring from the skies, so you’d get slapstick like Carles Gil flopping to his ass midway through one of his defender-twisting turns. The same affliction plagued any dribbler – e.g., Luca Orellano – but the teams still managed to create a respectable haul of chances between them. Cincy had the better chances early – some of the best they’d get in the first half, in fact - but New England got a hold of the game, little by little. The loose theory/dream of midfield dominance from my Scouting Report didn’t hold up so good – the Revs’ Matt Polster probably had the best two-way game of any player, and my personal honorable mention goes to Cincy’s Tah Anunga – which saw Cincinnati’s shots come from further and further away until the halftime whistle. Peak anxiety for the hosts undoubtedly came in the stretch between a New England header off the post (didn’t see who tagged it (well), but leaning toward Mamadou Fofana?) and Ignatius Ganago’s deflected shot squicking between Roman Celentano’s fingers, but that covers the “what might have beens” more or less (Luca Langoni fired a couple from range, etc.). Cincinnati came out of the locker room with a little fire under them (angry Pat Noonan!) and they probably had their best 15 minutes of the day between the 45th and 60th minute and that best period had slipped halfway out the door when Cincy finally got the go-ahead. Shots to the back-post had been popular all day, and for both teams, but the Orange and Blue finally worked a ball into the 18 that had Kevin Denkey dancing in front of two defenders; his short outlet teed up Corey Baird, who forced a bobble out of (a solid) Aljaz Ivacic, who pushed the ball to Pavel Bucha, who squared it for Sergio Santos to tap home: it took a village, in other words, which isn’t so surprising given some absences. That left 25+ minutes of running around, plus a couple more shots – the last one noted came from a deflected shot around the 80th by Jackson Yueill – and Cincinnati came within an offside flag of marching in an insurance goal (most of these made the full highlights), but the process of putting the game to bed started with Santos’ goal.

New England Revolution Scouting Report: Where Improvement Meets Failure

Builder of dreams? Master of delusions?

Their fortunes haven’t been so good and for some time. After showing up in 2023, the New England Revolution damn near fell off the map in 2024 – only the San Jose Earthquakes strayed into “Thar Be Dragons” – finishing 16 points out of the real playoffs (and nine points below the play-in round) and one slim point above Chicago Fire FC/the abyss. Caleb Porter and The Organization overhauled the roster over the off-season – see the line up /subs in last week’s 2-1 win over Red Bull New York versus the Decision Day line up/subs that handed Inter Miami CF the all-time single-season points record – which brings things current.

New England Revolution
1-3-1, 4 pts., 3 gf, 6 ga (-3); home 1-2-0, away 0-1-1
Last Results: DLLLW (yep, just five games played so far)
Strength/Location of Schedule
@ NSH (0-0 D); v CLB (0-1 L); v PHI (0-2 L); @ NYC (1-2 L); v RBNY (2-1 W)

Notes from the Field
Toward the beginning of last weekend’s broadcast, the color commentary guy announced New England had fired just 5 shots on goal in 2025. This has been confirmed. Their first goal of 2025 was an own-goal scored by New York City FC’s Thiago Martins (who, just to note it, had the audacity to lose his shit at his back-line colleagues after last weekend’s collapse at Atlanta United FC after that). How many shots did the Revs fire on goal in that one? Just one. Out of six total. Having sat through about 40 minutes of that game, I’d note a few things: 1) the Revolution didn’t look as incompetent as those top-line numbers suggest, you could see the green shoots, etc., and 2) as suggested by their other top-line numbers (e.g., 6 goals allowed), they can defend. The latter gets a bit sloppy in transition – and NYC took advantage, if just once – but it’s not defense that’s killing them. Also of note, the Revs started 2025 against taller opposition than some, maybe even many. That can be looked at two ways, of course – i.e., are those teams good, or does New England make them so by being bad? – and that’s where recent trends come in. The win over the Red Bulls – which came fucking late, by the way, and after a build-up held together by spit and the gospel according to Norman Vincent Peale (see full highlights?) – was the first time they’d won the xG battle all season (and they posted some harrowing numbers prior). They looked good for it too – had a couple things going on – e.g., Carles Gil feeding Luca Langoni through the right-side channel and playing to a late run by Ignatius Ganago – and that allowed them to more than double their shots on goal on the season. A multitude of questions hang over the win – e.g., how good are the New York teams this season, or just right now? (Red Bull has looked a little baffled every time I’ve watched them, fwiw); is the new Revs roster coming together? – and that points to the main question FC Cincinnati has to answer: are they one of the “good teams” this season?

Getting Reacquainted with the New England Revolution, MLS's Maids of Honor

To the queen in blue: you are seen, you are beautiful.

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. Throwing 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 fill all of the hole left by the guys before them, a once-reliable coach sticking around past his sell-by date, etc. Several rough seasons followed, before the 2014 season rolled around. 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 2021. 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-best-ever regular season in MLS history. And, yes, that record was broken just three years later by an Inter Miami CF team that rode a smash-and-grab reunion to even greater heights. Only to run into the same dead-end that never stopped haunting the Revs. They didn’t even make the semifinals. Ha.

Getting Reacquainted with the New England Revolution, MLS's Mighty Bridesmaids

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!

New England v FC Cincy Preview: New Sensation (and I Did the INXS Song Just Get Stuck in Your Head?)

First image for "a bright shiny future." Wow.

I tune in with anticipation for FC Cincinnati games in 2022. Not dread. Beautiful. Starting with some numbers...

New England Revolution
Record/Basics: 6-5-6, 24 points, 4-2-3 home; 2-3-3 away; 27 gf, 26 ga, +1 goal differential
Last 10: LWTTWTWTWT* (2-0-3 at home; more favorable than not, tho shit’s done changed)
Oppo: @ DC, v MIA, v CLB, @ ATL, @ CIN, v PHI, @ SKC, v ORL, v MIN, @ VAN

What We Know About Them
First, there have changes since the last time Cincy played New England – e.g., no more Matt Turner, no more Adam Buksa (ergo, no more this) – but something else changed as well: the Revs haven’t lost since the last day of April (30 days in April, right?). Still, hey have plenty of talent – your Bous, your Gils, your...rest of the team – and, after starting slower than an 80-year-old getting out of a low-slung sedan, they’re presently breathing down the back of Cincinnati’s collective necks. And the Orange and Blue play this one on the road.

Notes on Recent Form
[* Fucking Form Guide and its shifting dates...]

After watching, oh, 2/3 of last Wednesday’s 0-0 draw at the Vancouver Whitecaps and poking around some box scores, I noted some commonalities. New England generally likes possession, whether at home or on the road (they got ~60/40 in three of their last five, but had a 6% margin at lowest), but they no longer run up the chances (as I recall them doing). The 1-1 draw at the Union aside (danger, Will Robinson, danger!), they’ve generally gone shot-for-shot against the opposition; perhaps more tellingly (or hopeful), they’ve posted modest xG lately – e.g., from a low of 0.5 against Minnesota, but the rest (again, Philly excepted) fell in the just over 1.0 line.

Some details run between the numbers – e.g., they got an assist in the win over Sporting Kansas City with an Uri Rossell red card around half time, and they played up the gut (and got a little lucky) against the Loons, but they showed some tendency to play toward their left – i.e., toward newbie Dylan Borrero’s – in a couple other games. One more thing to flag, they’ve run over their season-average goal differential and/or pattern lately, but not by much. You can see who they played over their past five games, and where, I’m just providing some context for the results.

FC Cincinnati 2-3 New England Revolution: High from the Highest Tree-EEEE!

A little nod for all you Roger Miller fans.

“…put all that together, and it seems like the main thing Cincinnati will need to do on Saturday is keep up.”

So close, and yet so far. Hurts a little, honestly, but the sting of FC Cincinnati’s 2-3 home loss to the New England Revolution beats the holy hell out of the unholy hell of what past seasons have felt like - e.g., feeling one blow after another from a fetal position. I hate to do this, but, this one sentence from the (admittedly choppy) game thread on this game (I was cooking over the first 50 minutes), feels relevant to the discussion:

“Does #FCCincy go for broke at this point? Can they go for broke? And isn’t it nice to say that?”

To tie those two thoughts together, Cincy largely did keep up and with a visibly talented (yet still wobbly) New England team. Sure, the Revs won, but I’d put money on Tommy McNamara missing that shot nine times out of ten and not getting it at all more often still. Cincinnati’s defense dropped too deep, no question, and maybe they had run their legs out, but the Revs game-winner - all three of their goals, really - weren’t unlike rolling three straight, clean sevens in craps (and the lazy shits at MLS HQ didn't do pull-out highlights for this one, so the full four-minute reel is the only point of reference). Only they made each goal happen and credit to them. As loud as their Achilles heel screams (de-fense, de-fense), New England still moves the ball as well as any team in the league, Wilfrid Kaptoum and McNamara did well enough that they didn’t miss Matt Polster, Brandon Bye played a ridiculously effective game, etc. etc. etc.

But push a fair chunk of the credit to FC Cincy in this game for coming back into it twice - and they climbed the psychological equivalent of a mountain to do it. The broadcast booth called Sebastian Lletget’s opening goal against the run of play, but I’d call that valuing possession over effective use of it; New England had the better of the game to that point and they pulled Cincy like well-simmered pork on the goal. Good as Lletget’s movement was on that, Brandon Vazquez matched it on Cincy’s first equalizer, drifting back-post then, crucially, taking a step back allowed the other players to drift across his run and gave him a wee run-up to the ball to boot.

FC Cincinnati 0-1 New England Revolution: Inching Toward Competitive?

There was ample room for improvement, and yet...

If a game can feel busy and uneventful at the same time, I think I just watched it. All kinds of things happened - not least FC Cincinnati and the New England Revolution combined for nearly 40 shots, some of them quite good - but both ‘keepers spent most of the game looking unbeatable and both teams a step or two away from that defining moment when it all comes together and the crowd goes wild. Maybe it’s apt that the only goal came off a sleeper of a set-piece that didn’t feel any more dangerous than the rest of them.

That came in the 70th minute, when Cincy’s Ken Vermeer could only paw Adam Buksa’s header into the side netting (more later). With that, the Revs won a deceptively close game 1-0, leaving the universe feeling right and better at the same time.

My biggest takeaway is pretty straightforward: FC Cincinnati played a team that most people can see winning a trophy this season without squinting too hard and looked more or less competitive throughout. They got on the wrong side of dominated more often than any Cincy fan would like to see - an impression the xG numbers back up - but they also made more and better shots than they have all season, they had a shift of dominance of their own (about the 20th to the 25th minute), and after the Revs ended the first half strong, the defense adjusted and improved: if memory serves, New England ended the first half with 21 shots or thereabouts; they ended the game with just 26. (Related: if you watch the MLS in 15 highlights, the first half takes up at least 10 minutes of the run time.)

Now, to pick through the details…

Cincinnati seems to like the 5-3-2/3-5-2 they’ve used for the last couple games, even if they still struggle with getting the former to flip to the latter (that’s to say, neither Joe Gyau nor Ronald Matarrita impacted the game that much). They set a tone of “ain’t backin’ down” - see Caleb Stanko’s heavy lunge at Arnor Traustason and the fairly visible shove Jurgen Locadia used to throw off Henry Kessler to set up his first (pretty damn solid) shot - and I think that set a bar that referee David Gantar struggled to interpret consistently toward the end (and with no small part of that hovering in Kessler’s general vicinity). I can excuse all that on the grounds that it was the right tone to set - especially when playing in a new home Cincinnati both wants and needs to make into a fortress.

New England Revolution 0-2 FC Cincinnati: 1st Violin, 2nd Violin

I'll cut you. Bitch.

For all the unorthodoxies you’ll see down below, my primary take-away from FC Cincinnati’s 2-0 road win over the New England Revolution is fairly direct: I trust the roster construction.

Related, the heresy lingers around those roots.

To start at the beginning (feels natural), the only thing that surprised me about today’s result was how early and easily Cincinnati got up in New England’s shit. I expected a little deference, even though I didn’t see it as justified, i.e., see the Revs’ performance today, that’s not a good team at the mo, and may never be a good team so long as Brad Friedel holds the reins on their collective future, but that’s another topic for another post. All the same, anyone who looked at Cincinnati’s rebuild and saw a team that would spend its inaugural Major League Season punching out of the confines of a turtle’s shell would do themselves a favor by reassessing that theory. And, as pointed out by plenty of people (or just the ones I follow) on twitter, FC Cincinnati beat New England soundly with “starters” missing (this is a case where it’s OK to say, fuck the box score, seriously, ask a New England fan how much they value the edge in shots, corners, crosses and fouls).

It’s here that I admit that, until literally just now, I didn’t actually know who FC Cincy’s designated players are – but, for the record, Fanendo Adi and Allan Cruz. Both players missed todays’ game, and that’s where the $64,000 question kicks in: did you FC Cincinnati miss either player? Did you miss them (OK, yes, Cruz a bit; still studying)? What does the designated player really mean beyond the guy who gets paid more to play on the same team? For now, I’m treating that as both an open question and a gadfly for the Orange and Blue’s two DPs – i.e., if the team can win without you, how much does that “designation” really matter? But that, and the general concept of earning one’s place on a roster, rightly belongs as something to file away.

Now, for the specific heresy – honestly, I didn’t want to bury this, because controversy sellz – I’m not as geeked up on Kenny Saief as everyone else seems to be. And I’m talking about a reasonably healthy cross-section of FC Cincy fans and neutrals (e.g., MLS stringer Sam Stejskal). I’ll give him every manner of credit for his grass-cutting feed that Kekuta Manneh stabbed home for Cincinnati’s game-winning goal and, yes, he scored the insurance goal to boot…but it’s what he did between there and there that left me underwhelmed. First, Manneh owns Cincy’s first goal, and all the way down to his genuflection to (presumably) Mecca: he was the player who wrestled the ball up New England’s gut, found Saief wide open on the Revs’ right, and then continued his run under the decidedly unconcerned watch of New England’s Wilfried Zahibo (aka, proof that not all French players are either elegant or good). After that, in between a creditable right-time-right-place moment for Cincy’s second goal, I didn’t see much that set Saief apart from a clumsier version of an MLS-standard box-to-box midfielder. He under-hit obvious passes in momentum-killing ways throughout the game, lingered too long on the ball several times and, despite a period of 20-25 minutes when it appeared New England utterly failed to account for his presence on the field, he basically threw away at least two totally free runs up New England’s gut.