I don't think Marko Mitrovic had the 1961 classic from The Shirelles on his mind in the last few days, nor would he probably sing those lyrics at one of his pressers.
Maybe we could get that going in The Fort though, I mean, it works on both good days and bad days. I don't know how catchy it is I'm not musically inclined. But I do know that Wednesday, was a bad day.
But I think Mitrovic has the right idea on how to handle that loss: burn the tape with fire and we're on to Minnesota.
“It’s a new day. For us, it’s always a new day. It doesn’t matter what the result of the [previous] game was." Mitrovic said at Thursday's media availability. "Obviously, it’s always better when you win, but we already switched our minds to today, to how we can use today to recover, because the game is coming in 48 hours. The staff has completely switched to the next game, and we only speak about Minnesota.”
The New England Revolution are a young team that is playing significantly better than they have the last two years, though admittedly that is a low bar to clear. Regardless of their results which have been via a combination of vibes, sorcery, and donuts, we can decidedly conclude the Revs are not bad.
That does not mean that they can't have a bad day. Which is what happened midweek. Everything went wrong, Carles Gil was off, every halfway decent ball in the attacking half seemed to get stuck in someone's feet, a gift wrapped goal right before half time. When the vibes are on, even when the Revs are doing things wrong, they're able to figure it out.
But when the vibes are bad...well, yikes.
Seth Macomber
And that's okay. I think largely the things that Nashville punished the Revs on are things that Nashville is just better at right now. New England is to an extent trying to emulate the veteran current East leaders and CONCACAF semifinalists, but right now they are better than the Revs in all phases.
Do I think the Revs are six goals worse than the Coyotes in the aggregate, no. However they were very bad in that opener and certainly not as bad midweek. So maybe it balances out. And the Revs are still trying to balances things out as well and I think just got stuck against a very organized team.
"I still felt that if we keep the game simple in the second half, we could get back. I don't think that any of the guys gave up on that." Mitrovic said after the Nashville game. "But, Nashville is just a very good team that uses the opportunities that you give them on the field. They are a very difficult team to break down.”
Thomas Pinzone
Thomas Pinzone did the deep tactical dive on the Nashville game, which was the exact game you needed Dor Turgeman to be involved in without Luca Langoni to support him. Instead he spent his day pressing sideline to sideline without much payoff, not his fault, there's just only so much he can do and we can never fault his work rate.
New England however played a game that I thought was similar to their match against Charlotte, when Carles Gil's stoppage time penalty secured a 1-0 win a few weeks ago. The Revs might have put in their best shift in build up play of the year, but it didn't really amount to anything. I think the same thing happened against Nashville. Keeping it simple can work, but at some point if that simplicity isn't creating a significant advantage, you need to change it up.
Too often the Revs were stuck in the corners, both their own defensively and while attacking in Nashville's third, just making passing triangles. And while those rondos paid off with the Revs keeping possession, they didn't create any advantage from them. They either still had the ball deep in their own third or had the ball in the attacking third with no one in the box to aim for cause they're all in support at close range on the wing.
Both situations I think Nashville was happy with. Their press always seemed to be in the Revs half or defensive third while the Revs counter press was near midfield at best. All the more reason to not rely on your shot stopping goalkeeper to be a central midfielder in possession.
Stop trying to make goalkeepers into central midfielders. Looking at you USMNT/MLS. Stop it. No! Bad soccer.
Josh Nye
I think New England's biggest absence midweek was Langoni. I didn't hate the shifts that Yusuf and Yow put in, but they're too similar of a player in that more box-to-box support role than dynamic, creative out and out winger. New England was able to free up Peyton Miller on the left a few times and Will Sands did come up and cause some havoc from the right back spot, but overall the final ball into the box just wasn't able to develop.
While the Revs might be more progressive in possession, I still think they end up in the same Porterball situations where there isn't enough movement or creativity off that possession. For the Revs, it's a numbers game, when they create overloads they can create those opportunities but otherwise it's up to someone to win a 1v1 and that's really up to Carles and Peyton. And Gil got stuffed on several of those attempts against the stout Nashville defense.
My only true complaint for the midweek game was the substitutions. They needed to be much earlier. I think Diego should have come on at the hour mark, if not halftime due to the scoreline. Zambrano and Fry maybe around the 70th for fresher legs, but not getting Carles Gil out immediately at 0-3 was a major issue for me. He was having a bad game, his turnover led to the counter on the first goal, and he did not need the extra 10 minutes until the 85th.
Play the kids. Trust the kids. It's very hard to see what they can do down by three for a 5-15 minute cameo. The best asset on the Revolution is speed and I do not think they are utilizing it enough. Eventually they will have both the speed and wisdom to take a 34th minute turnover all the way into a big scoring chance the other way. Wednesday however was not that day.
Sometimes the master must remind the padawan much to learn they still have. Nashville right now is the master at what I think the Revs are trying to build towards. And they're not there yet...but the gap from February is closing for sure.
The Revs are in a very unique and positive situation. They already have 22 points this year before the halfway mark, with two games to play - vs Minnesota and at Charlotte. New England had 36 points all of last year. They are ahead of the curve right now, but the first of three half seasons (pre WC '26, post WC '26, spring/sprint '27) before the calendar switch has been a rousing success. And the Revs will have a chance to add to the roster this summer in what is now surely a strong push to not only make the playoffs, but perhaps host in the first round.
But there are going to be games like Nashville. Where they bully you on the road and steal your lunch money at home cause you left it out on the table in plain sight for them to take.
I do think Marko is right, the Revs were much better midweek than in the opener. Both games might have yielded the same margin of defeat, but you can see the growth and improvements the Revs have made over the last three months or so. At some point in the second half of the year, a lot of those improvements should start to come together in a full team sense.
Until then, Marko said there'd be days like this.
