Caleb Porter Calls Saturday's Match Against Inter Miami "Biggest Game in Boston Soccer History"

“Yeah, it's a great opportunity. The biggest game in Boston soccer history, I think, when you look at the attendance."

Photo By J. Alexander Dolan

Gillette Stadium has had some historic players grace the field in Foxboro but New England Revolution head coach Caleb Porter believes that Saturday, April 27 will be the biggest match in Boston soccer history.

“Yeah, it's a great opportunity,” Porter said of the opportunity to play in front of a sell-out crowd. “The biggest game in Boston soccer history, I think, when you look at the attendance. So, it's a great opportunity for us to catapult our season, to get new fans, to show the Greater Boston community what the Revs are about, that they can get excited about this other team that happens to be in Boston other than football and hockey and baseball and basketball. So, our players are excited, really excited. There are a lot eyes on this match, so if you're a player that wants to perform on the biggest stage, this is a big stage.”

Funny enough this won’t be Messi’s first time playing at Gillette Stadium if he suits up for Saturday’s match. The greatest soccer player to date led Argentina to a 3-1 win over Venezuela in the quarterfinals of the 2016 Copa América Centenario.

But this will be the first time that a stadium will be completely packed for a match involving the Revolution. The MLS side could earn a ton of new fans with a good performance.

But that seems highly unlikely.

New England seems allergic to scoring goals and with Messi likely making magic in the midfield, the Revolution will almost certainly need to score some of their own.

With the Stadium being packed with fans who likely have never been to a Revs match before, Porter hopes that they will give New England a chance.

“Well, don’t look at the record. [Laughing] I think we're a lot better than the record,” he said. “We want to be an exciting team. We haven't shown that in the first eight games, but I'm confident that we will show that moving forward. We'll be a team that can create goals, score goals, and play aggressive. I'm disappointed that we haven't really left our fans, in this first part of the year, with a great feeling of wins and goals. So, we can't do anything about that, it's about the next eight games for me.

“We had a bad quarter,” he continued. “In business, when you have a bad quarter, you correct and then you go into the next quarter and you make it right, and that's what we're going to do.”

While the Revolution have an opportunity to prove that fans should return for future matches, they also have the potential to show they are exactly who fans think they are; a mediocre team who can’t finish and gives up inopportune goals.

Whether New England proves the doubters wrong or confirms what observers have seen is unknown but all eyes will be on the Revolution.