New England Revolution Adapting to Life Under Caleb Porter

"It's just an adaptation to some extent, and some of it is unavoidable, and some of that has to do with Champions Cup as well, with all the wear and tear in those first two months of the season."

Photo By J. Alexander Dolan

The New England Revolution have been firmly bitten by the injury bug and fans are starting to wonder if fate is just cruel or can these injuries be prevented.

Let’s take a journey through time and go back to New England Revolution head coach Caleb Porter’s introductory press conference.

“But that'll be an important piece is how we can minimize injury through our sports science, our awareness of that, and our planning,” Porter said when asked about reintegrating players such as Brandon Bye and Dylan Borrero midseason. “Again, if we're good with our planning – you can't avoid some injuries, but with soft tissue injuries, you can avoid a mistake. So, we need to make sure our planning is good in terms of how we periodize the players physically. But the medical staff, the sports science staff, they'll have a plan to reintegrate these guys where they can hit the ground running.”

Considering that Bruce Arena was as secretive with injuries this seemed like a positive first step. Surely New England would be able to stay somewhat healthy this season right?

Well that hasn’t exactly been the case. Entering the match against Inter Miami, the Revolution had eight players on the injury report. This included Dylan Borrero who ended up playing 10 minutes in the 4-1 loss.

But Nacho Gil can be added to this list as he suffered a non-contact injury towards the end of the defeat. He was seen leaving Gillette Stadium in crutches and Porter described the injury as “not good”.

“Yeah, we have a lot of guys injured right now,” Porter said prior to the match against Miami. “So, some of that transition is our training level, for sure. There's an adaptation for in how we train. We train in a very intense way, a very tactical way. You can't play in a game with intensity unless you train with intensity. You have to train like you play. You have to train like you want to play. It's that simple. So, some guys are getting used to that. They like it, but their bodies aren't ready for it. So, we've had a few soft tissue injuries because of that.

Along with that DeJuan Jones slipped and ended up straining his hamstring in NYC while Jonathan Mensah suffered a similar injury on the Gillette Stadium turf. Noel Buck was also on the injury list after starting the Toronto match with a quad injury.

“I don't think anybody's more thorough than us on the sports science side,” Porter said when asked by The Blazing Musket about injury prevention. “We have one of the best performance coaches in the league and [Revolution Director of Sports Performance] Federico Pizzuto. So, we're nailing our loads. It's just an adaptation to some extent, and some of it is unavoidable, and some of that has to do with Champions Cup as well, with all the wear and tear in those first two months of the season. In our training loads, individually and collectively, there is an adaptation. We're looking at that. We're always looking to data. We need players that can do it and it starts with training, because you can't have pro days all week and then expect to play the way we want to play. You have to grind and you have to play with intensity. The best teams in the world, that's how they train. They train with intensity.”

While an illness ravaging through the locker room is far from preventable, New England needs to manage Borrero’s return to play properly as well as Jones and Mensah. If they miss any more time, the team will be in even more trouble than it already is.

But either the players or Porter need to adjust because the amount of injuries the team has suffered isn’t sustainable. The Revolution needs their best players healthy if they want to climb out of the massive hole they have dug themselves so far in the 2024 season.