The New England Revolution are returning home from Chicago having won three of their last four games, all on the road. It's an impressive haul of points and included some excellent performances and it leaves them sitting third in the Eastern Conference with nine games to go.
The points taken from the Chicago game are just about the only thing worth mentioning or remembering from Sunday's game. The Revs did well in the first half to survive some shaky moments in front of their goal and grab a goal of their own. The Revs then pressed and won the ball near the halfway line and quickly hit the space in behind and struck again to go 2-0 up.
Shortly after, Chicago's coach, Greg Berhalter, made three changes that brought life into the Fire's attack. And the Revs decided in that same moment that they were done attacking for the rest of the game and spent almost the entire last 30 minutes camped out in their own penalty area, desperately clearing the ball upfield to no one.
At various points, the Revs were effectively playing a 5-5-0 with Carles Gil the furthest player forward, who for all his skills, is not an obvious option to get on the end of a clearance and race in behind. They hunkered down as if they had gone down to 10 men, starting going long on goal kicks and lacking any composure on the ball.
The ends may justify the means for many. But this has been a team that doesn't use the result to justify their play after the fact.
Marko Mitrovic has been an inspiration because he's talked positively about performances that created situations with which to win from but just didn't quite come to pass. We were starting to believe this was a team that kept going, kept pushing forward, wouldn't settle and sit on a lead, and wanted to put teams away, not hold on and hope for the whistle.
It was an extreme display of negative pragmatism, the type of stuff the last guy around here lived off of. The only upside from Sunday night is that at this moment in time, it's an aberration. Let's hope it stays that way; let's hope this isn't a shift to "playoff style" soccer. We were ready to back Mitrovic and this team to the hilt at 2-0. But now we wait again for the moment where fully bought in we can be.
Other Musings
Before the total abandonment of attacking play and subbing defenders en masse took place, there was one tactical concern the Revs will need to be wary of going forward. Robert Lewandowski was able to pull Mamadou Fofana into the midfield area and then flick the ball beyond both of them into the space vacated by Fofana. Nothing more than a chance or two came from this but there needs to be an understanding of how to fill that space when Fofana gets drawn forward.
It's not so much an issue when the forward being tracked receives to feet but the aerial flick-on can cause 2v1 or 3v2 at the back rather quickly. The Revs would be susceptible to this with a two center back pairing, as the left back can quickly be dealing with a midfield runner and wide player at once.
A defensive rotation is needed in these moments involving Ethan Kohler sliding in the left center back space and either Matt Polster from right back or Brooklyn Raines from center mid slotting in next to Kohler. Not a massive issue on Sunday but they will need to have a plan for target forwards drawing Fofana out.
Kudos to Jackson Yueill!
Yueill has been a much maligned figure in his time with the Revs. Originally brought in as a replacement for Matt Polster in 2025, he quickly lost that starting role and has been only an occasional participant since then. That really isn't much cause for the disdain many people have with Yueill, it's almost entirely fueled by his just over a million dollar a year contract. It is not, of course, Yueill's fault he's paid what he is and any of us would be happy to be overcompensated in our own salary versus our importance to the organization as he is.
Yueill got the start on Sunday at the end of a three-game in nine-day stretch with Alhassan Yusuf out injured. He put in a solid performance with a few well-timed interventions defending in the penalty area and was neat and tidy with his passing, mostly during the portion of the game in which the Revs were actually attempting passes.
He was eventually and correctly credited with an assist for his long ball out of the penalty area that found Dor Turgeman in the process of fending off a defender to get onto the long ball and finish a nicely taken goal. In the second half, the ball fell to him again in the Revs half, and he immediately hit the space in behind the Chicago defense for Turgeman to run onto once again. Turgeman set up Peyton Miller for the winning goal from there. An assist, a hockey assist, and some key defensive moments, all while being a steady midfield presence.
It's just the sort of thing a team needs here and there from a veteran backup center mid. His performance and quick thinking on a couple of passes helped the Revs get a critical three points. Yusuf will be welcomed back as soon as he can be, but Yueill can help down the stretch.
Hats off to Yueill then; Turgeman had one of his better games in a Revs uniform, and the Revs took three valuable points. Let's just hope the rest of Sunday gets thrown in the bin.
