Progress is measured in all sorts of ways. The New England Revolution currently sitting in second place in the Eastern Conference are in all available metrics, certainly enjoying a level of success not seen in several years.
No one should have predicted two months ago that the Revs would be where they are in the standings while being unbeaten at home and having 11 different goal scorers. If you did, you're lying somehow.
Now unbeknownst to the league website, which has written almost nothing about the Revs this year save for Carles making the 50G/50A club and Esmir crushing Italy's World Cup hopes, and just about everyone else watching Boston sports collapse the past few weeks...the Revs are very quietly having their best season in years.
And I think that suits them just fine.
Seth Macomber
We don't need everyone else to know of the seemingly endless number of Marko Mitrovic speeches from the locker room or the routinely glowing praise from his players who are willing to run through a brick wall for him. Right now the Revs need only two things, and they have both in spades at the moment.
Resiliency. Vibes.
That's it, that's the list. Okay, and donuts but that's not the point.
It is staggering what a little bit of self belief, motivation, youth, fun, and whatever else was needed to breakthrough the post-Bruce Arena/Caleb Porter era malaise that had the Revs among not just the worst teams in the league, but also one of the least inspiring teams as well.
Carles Gil looks like his MVP self again as does former Goalkeeper of the Year Matt Turner. New England has rediscovered that set pieces can indeed go in the back of net. Alhassan Yusuf has been tremendous as has Will Sands, Ethan Kohler, Luca Langoni, Ilay Feingold, and the utter devastation that Peyton Miller wreaks off the bench is almost unfair.
I am not saying that this is the reincarnated 2021 Shield winning Revs, I think they are far from that in many aspects. But we have not seen a New England team in some time with the capability to turn around games into wins as consistently as this team is doing since that squad five years ago.
Seth Macomber
I would be willing to wager, and no I'm not going to do the math it would be too painful, that the Revs this year with three come from behind wins already this year (CIN/CLB/ATL) have flipped probably the same number of results in two months under Marko Mitrovic than they did in two years under Porter. While the Revs got some late wins under Porter, that was the hallmark of that Shield team that just wore people down late. Marko's Revs aren't operating in the same way but do have the similar belief that if they're in the game late that then can win the game late.
To top that thought off, New England has also gotten a couple of wins while making a first half sub due to injury. Both times sliding a player backward in the formation into their more natural position. Yusuf from...I can't say winger, left central attacking mid?...yeah, that to his more normal CDM spot and then Kohler from CDM to CB where he's now basically claimed the third spot in that depth chart. Asking a veteran laden team to succeed in that scenario can be a tough ask, the Revs pulling it off practically twice in succession is the highest mark of great coaching I think you can witness.
Moving players around your formation twenty minutes in, get to halftime, adjust and regroup, and then go win the darn game. It sounds so simple yet I have to imagine it doesn't happen like that as often as we think.
Yes the Revs perhaps dropped a couple of points in Miami and picked up a couple against Charlotte that evened out or skewed things depending on who you ask. If you had told me at the start of the year that those two games would be draws and the Revs played reasonably well to pretty darn good, I'd have taken that in a heartbeat. In fact, playing three good games and only getting three draws from ATL-MIA-CLT with a short game week in there likely would have been a positive two months ago.
The Revs got seven points in this stretch, and had the potential to take all nine which was unfathomable to think back in February based on where New England ended last season. Perhaps the most impressive part is the Revs doing it with largely the same core of players that were struggling mightily at times last year.
Sam Lattof
Now are there problems that still need to be fixed? Absolutely.
The Revs still can't figure out how to get their striker involved in a match, this is far from a new problem but just as annoying as it has been in past years. I still think they're spending too much time playing Porter ball and not being direct enough, and New England is hemorrhaging big chances in front of Turner's net. Specifically against Charlotte I thought Marko needed to be more aggressive with his subs, you have the kids, play them! That's the whole subplot of this endeavor to begin with.
But like five years ago if you're going to score goals late and your goalkeeper is going to stand on his head, you're not going to be on the wrong side of many scorelines. I will keep saying results are a pass/fail business: did you get the points or not? Because the importance of the Revs getting points to start the year was really a secondary goal. There was a lot of other things to sort out and it seems the bulk of those have been addressed.
Sam Lattof
The solution to most of these issues was Mitrovic basically streaming Ted Lasso on Apple TV to figure out how to get the locker room in a good frame of mind. Signing half of his US YNT U20's also seems like it is helping but that was always more of a long term play. New England is still figuring out things that work, and last week against Charlotte the build up play was perhaps the best its been all year...but it also didn't seem like it the Revs best chance creation day of the season either.
There were always going to be growing pains with a new coach, new style, and new players. But winning cures a lot of things that ail a struggling sports team. Confidence was in short supply the last few years and it certainly is contagious now that the Revs have found a little of it let alone the handful of players that have made stark turnarounds so far this year. Questions about defensive depth seem to have all but evaporated and as the Revs get healthier they'll have more options to bring off the bench and plug into the lineup with full confidence that the player coming on will keep the engine going.
The Revs found themselves in a very interesting spot with a year and a half until MLS switches the calendar on everyone in that it almost seemed like they were building a roster to be primed for that 2027 spring sprint season or the 27/28 main regular season. Throw in the World Cup break and it's almost like the Revs are playing three half league season and potentially two playoff runs before we really might unleash the full potential of Mitrovic's efforts.
Trusting a process that allowed this young roster to grow into fully functioning squad over the next 18 months was already something a lot of us bought into. We'll let the rest of the league figure out if we're overachieving or if the results are unsustainable for reasons that are already being fixed. Because this team is getting better and we don't need to look at the standings to know that.
If the Revolution are winning right now on mostly resiliency and vibes, imagine what they can do when they start exerting any semblance of dominance in the soccer department.
Assuming that anyone outside of Gillette Stadium happened to notice.
