New England Revolution Improving at Building Out of Back
"It's a process and if everybody could play out and control games, then everybody would do it. That's what we want to evolve into."
Playing out of the back isn’t for everyone (just ask fans of the United States Men’s National Team) but with Caleb Porter at the helm, the New England Revolution are a squad that wants to.
Ever since Porter took over, he has aimed at imprinting his style of play on the roster and playing out of the back has been just one tenet of his preferred method of play. While New England had previously struggled, they looked much improved against the Chicago Fire on Saturday evening.
Part of the reason that the Revolution seemed to improve was the fact that they had a new goalkeeper. Aljaz Ivacic looked calm with the ball at his feet and also managed to spray the ball across the field at times.
Porter commented on the team’s ability to build out of the back after New England’s 1-0 win over the Chicago Fire.
“Yeah, better, not still where I want, but it's step-by-step,” Porter said. “It's brick-by-brick. It's a process and if everybody could play out and control games, then everybody would do it. That's what we want to evolve into. I thought we made steps forward today and we created a structure to play. That structure was based on scouting, and looking at Chicago and how they defend, and when we got into that structure finally, about midway through the first half, and we opened up, created the three line, pushed the outside backs high, moved our wingers inside to overload the middle, then that allowed us to create numerical superiority and that advantage in the build up to be able to play and then eventually, open them up. So, I thought, yeah, it was improved today, and it does help when you have guys like Aljaž [Ivačič] and [Xavier] Arreaga, because both of those guys are very good on the ball and they are smart players.”
As Porter mentioned, it isn’t just because of Ivacic’s addition. New England as a whole looked better building out of the back.
The likes of Henry Kessler and Arreaga looked a lot calmer when facing pressure from the Fire. In particular, Kessler was great with the ball at his feet. The 25-year-old completed 90 percent of his passes and also had two accurate long balls and a pass into the final third.
Similar to Porter, Carles Gil hopes to see New England continue to build on its ability to build out of the back.
“We need to improve in those things, trying to keep the ball better, finding the open man, the free man,” the midfielder said. “It’s never easy, but we are working on that, to make better decisions and keep the ball. If you’re not doing this well, you need to try to defend well like today, to have some counterattacks like we did and win games.”
Saturday’s win was a positive first step but now the Revolution need to show that they win more consistently. If they fail to show up against the Red Bulls, New England’s second win of the season will be all for nothing. The Revolution are still the worst team in the Eastern Conference and need to continue to tally points if they want to dig themselves out of their early season hole.
If Porter can continue to get his players to play the style of play he wants — and not simply react to how the opponents are playing — New England just might stand a chance this season.
Interesting narrative from Porter as always. Their build up play created two shots, 32nd and 56th minutes.
The other 9 shots came from going route 1, counter attacking, forced turnovers, corners not from build up play and a long pass from Gil.
Let's not get all giddy about a win over a team that was clearly struggling.