Level Set 8, the New England Revolution: MLS's Bridesmaids. Who Don't Quit.

Holy shit. That is a fucking cast.

What follows is a brief history of the New England Revolution, plus more brief notes on whatever long-term tendencies they have. Their 2025 season gets weighed on both sides of that and the whole thing ends with where I see things with them in this very specific moment in time - i.e., before First Kick 2026. You should count on things happening between here and there.

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.

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?

New England Revolution 1-1 FC Cincinnati: Notes on a Hypothesis

Tirelessly searching for answers to today's vexing questions

When the New England Revolution’s Dylan Borrero went down awkwardly and was stretchered off around the 20th minute, I remember looking at the Revs’ somewhat headless attach (aka, Justin Rennicks) and wondering whether they could keep up with a mostly all-there FC Cincinnati attack. I would have done better to recall a note from my very own preview for the game:

“...unless Cincy fans see Gil’s name on the injury report...Cincy will be facing a solid, talented Revs team regardless of who starts.”

Young homegrown Esmir Bajraktarevic stepped in for Borrero and the Revs’ rhythm section barely missed a beat. Then again, that turned mostly played out to in the big-picture response. Things didn’t look so hot for the Revs in the near-term. And that “solid, talented team” theory could have looked different, maybe even should have.

To finally turn to FC Cincinnati – i.e., the actual subject of the post – they didn’t waste much time in putting that that theory to the test. Taking any kind of lead would do and Rennicks looked to have handed them one when he tagged a ball Alvaro Barreal clipped past him into the area with his right hand. I didn’t like the call – while there was no question Rennicks tagged the ball with his hand, I never got an angle that confirmed he did it in the “no-no zone” (can we make that happen, guys?) – but referee Alex Chilowicz pointed to the penalty spot...which happened to be the very same one from which Luciano Acosta got stuffed by the Revs’ Dorde Petrovic (how is this not a highlight, MLS?). For what it’s worth, I’m reading the miss as God seconding my doubts on the penalty call...

Cincinnati had dropped a couple stones’ worth of pressure on New England to that point – I thought Brandon Vazquez had pinged one off a post somewhere in there (the highlights memory-holed that one too, if he did) – and the corner that followed in less than a minute after the missed PK followed when they dropped on another one. The cross looked innocuous enough when it floated in, but Yerson Mosquera made a masterpiece of it when he slipped away from Andrew Farrell (a rock all afternoon; one of MLS’ best emergency defenders, still doing it) and into Dave Romney’s (also strong yesterday) blind-spot; ah, Mosquera’s li’l, legal bump into Romney’s back, the masterstroke. Once Cincinnati scored the opener, the test was on.

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 Cincinnnati Preview: Eyeing a Counter-Revolution

Just get in the way of it often enough.

It’s no secret that the New England Revolution dropped the Supporters’ Shield in 2022 (yeah, yeah, it's early; just roll with it). They’ve been a combination of inconsistent and fragile since First Kick, with only three wins in eleven games this season and none coming on the road. As such, FC Cincinnati isn’t facing 2021 New England tomorrow afternoon.

Because I’m between concepts on this site, I didn’t sit down to watch the Revs’ draw at Atlanta last weekend and yet another goddamn national broadcast blackout means I can't do a make-up [Ed. - Honestly, ESPN+ has a knack for blacking out games involving Cincy’s next opponents.] That said, I don’t think the book on New England has changed much since their record-setting 2021 season: they score goals with confidence and hand them out with the opposite. To finish the thought on the Revs defense, the narrative goes something like this: they give up a lot of chances and rely on Matt Turner to stop them. (And he does.)

FC Cincinnati should get chances, basically, and they look like a good bet to finish them off. They’ve got an elite chance-creator/finder in Luciano Acosta dishing key passes (if with surprisingly few primary assists; just three), plus a confident striker in Brandon Vazquez. Related, I just bumbled into something fun: Cincy is downright communitarian when it comes to assists - eight players have supplied one, three players two, then there’s Acosta’s three - and that’s a good thing; it’s harder to shut off the supply when it comes from all over.

To flip the point of view, the Revs have scored two goals in their last six games and have only been kept off the board once all season. They haven’t exactly played the cream of the league lately, thought they did get a pair of goals past a better-than-average Columbus Crew SC defense, and on the road, So, odds are they’ll score a goal or two against Cincy. That’s despite a late improvement from them - though, again, mind the opposition, e.g., Chicago, Minnesota and Toronto X 2) - but, taking in what we have so far, all signs point to keeping up with the Revs' offense as Cincinnati's prime directive for Saturday.

MLS Snapshot: Week 31 Begins and Another in a Long Series of Posts Explaining How I Make Peace with the Fact That I'd Totally Let Nagbe Leave

 He knows what time it is.

[NOTE: Linking policy:  I’m going to limit my linking in these things to the recaps to each of the games; MLSSoccer.com’s recaps are pretty thorough, easy to navigate, so if I you muck around in those things, you'll find most of what you need.]

Look into my eyes…Major League Soccer Week 30 (31? It was 30, right? Shit! Breaking the spell!) Look into my eyes….MLS Week 30 never happened, MLS Week 30 never happened, MLS Week 30 never…hap….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz………

Wow! Time to dive back into the hot MLS action after that short break for [Re-Education.] [Cheery picture of Dear Leader.] [Re-Education.]. Hi, friends!! MLS Week 31 kicked off early, just the way we like it!! There were just four games to clock Wednesday night. I’ll pick through the highlights in the next couple paragraphs, but there’s only one real reason this post’s going up at all: something triggered my Darlington Nagbe obsession. I tucked that at the end, everything in its time, and so on.

OK, proceeding now, per the proper procedures, here are some things you should know from this week’s games! And, apologies, I don’t mean to dissent, but, in the interest of the party, I feel compelled to point out that, every so often, MLS Live repeats segments. Actually, it’s once every game. And yet, I am ever so thankful for everything! Long live Dear Leader Garber!!! (Ugh, can’t keep that bit up. Sorry.)

Wednesday night was all about the Eastern Conference, what with six Eastern teams vying across four games. The games all mattered, though how much depended quite a bit on where one lives. Put another way, in the normal course of events, a guy couldn’t give a shit about the Chicago Fire visiting the Seattle Sounders. Lord knows the teams didn’t do much to keep neutral tuned in. Even the goddamn goal was predictable. And yet, here we are Portland Timbers fans, checking the rearview. Where a most unwelcome sight looms into view.

Timbers Top Chicago, But Are They Tall Enough?

NOTE: This is NOT a high bar.

Celebrating a win comes naturally. It's also easy to moan about a loss. This morning, though, I'm going to do the second hardest thing in spectator sports, i.e. moan about a win. (What's the hardest thing? Trumpeting the little victories in a loss.)

This could have gone up last night, but, after peaking at Twitter and seeing generally positive tweets about Adam Kwarasey's clean sheets (in spite of himself?) and how reliably the Timbers perform at Providence Park (but what about well?), giving people time to celebrate before I haul the rain clouds over the party felt like the classy thing to do.

Look, I'm happy that the Timbers accidentally beat the Chicago Fire last night. Yeah, yeah, credit Timbers players for putting themselves into position to cause problems, but the goal that won it was accidental. In the hours since the final whistle blew, I’ve come to think of the win as such: when Lassie came over the hill barking her head off, she brought good news and bad: the good news is that Timmy is alive and uninjured (we won!), but the bad news is that Timmy is still at the bottom of the goddamn well.

This past Thursday, I attended a classy symposium comprised of people with a peculiar (erotic?) interest in the performance and fate of the Portland Timbers. At one point, some smart someone floated the question of whether last night's game was a must-win. After answering yes, I drifted off from time to time as I tried to figure out why that felt accurate. What I came up with is the argument that facing a team that's clearly in the running to be, literally, one of the worst in the league, and on your home field, works like those childhood-destroying signs at amusement parks that say "you must be at least [this tall] in order to ride this ride."

Being as tall as that sign only means that you're big enough to go on the ride, not that you're ready for it. Think of "the ride" as the playoffs, and you should follow.