The New England Revolution will head on the road to face CF Montreal on the weekend and will do so without a few players.
Ilay Feingold and Leo Campana remain out. Head coach Marko Mitrovic gave an update on their recovery ahead of the match.
“With Ilay [Feingold] and Leo [Campana], right now we are in a good spot," Mitrovic said when asked for an update by The Blazing Musket. "We had small setbacks with both of them, and that kind of extended the timeline for them. They are coming back, but they are now on a very good path and making very good progress. As I said last week, I hope that in the next few weeks both of them will be back to play.”
Luca Langoni is headed in the right direction. Mitrovic noted that Langoni was forced to miss time during the World Cup break and that he is continuing to increase his fitness levels.
"With Luca [Langoni], it’s now two full weeks that Luca has been practicing with the team," Mitrovic said. "Good thing for Luca, we got him some minutes in the last two games, which is building his fitness level. Because fitness level will obviously impact his performance, but also to avoid any setbacks. We are happy with how Luca is progressing. We just need to be patient because Luca missed the whole summer and training [sessions] for different reasons."
So is Alhassan Yusuf who had to leave New England's win over Atlanta United with a lower-body injury.
“Yusuf feels better day after day, and he took a great step forward today," Mitrovic said. "We're still evaluating him day by day, and hopefully he can take another step forward tomorrow in order to play on Saturday. I think tomorrow will be the crucial day for our decision."
The Revolution will look to repeat the home cooking that it had against Montreal earlier in the year. New England secured a 3-0 win over the Canadian side in April.
Prince Owusu has been the star for Montreal. He has nine goals on the season. Additionally, Matty Longstaff and Samuel Piette provide a calm presence in the midfield.
Mitrovic noted that Montreal is performing well and that recent results don't reflect how well they are playing.
"We're going to face Montreal [on Saturday], a team that in those three games after the break, definitely deserved more of a scoreline," the head coach said. "I think that their performances were much better than the results show. I think that they were very unlucky in certain moments. That's a team that loves to play at home, and they really use their home also as an advantage. They have very good support from fans, so we are very aware that we are going to have one very tough, difficult opponent and a difficult challenge ahead of us.”
But in all reality, this is a match New England should be winning. Montreal are bottom dwellers in the East, and if the Revs want to be taken seriously as contenders, they should secure another win.
