Revolution Looking to Right Their Wrongs Against Philadelphia
"We weren’t happy with the way we played so it’s exciting that we have next week to right our wrongs.”
The New England Revolution had a poor start to their match against Inter Miami and Phil Neville’s side made the Revs pay with an early goal. As the club prepares for this week’s “Rivalry Week” match against the Philadelphia Union, veteran Ema Boateng stated that Bruce Arena had a clear message for his players.
“The big thing that Bruce [Arena] said to us this morning was that we have to learn from it,” Boateng said on Tuesday. “We have to be better from the start of games, and just be better all-around to make sure we play to our standards now. He challenged us, and at the beginning of training too he brought the whole group together and said it again. He needs to see a reaction, and I thought the training was pretty sharp and everybody was competing again. We’ll try to make it better this Saturday.”
Brandon Bye added that New England will be looking to correct the mistakes that they made against Miami.
“I think it’s tough to lose, especially on the road and in a tough environment,” the left back said. “We weren’t happy with the way we played so it’s exciting that we have next week to right our wrongs.”
While there is no denying the poor start by New England played a factor in the club’s first loss since March, that wasn’t the only reason why the Revs dropped points down in Florida. VAR once again took away a goal from New England (a beautiful example of individual play by Noel Buck at that) and a case of mistaken identity allowed for David Ruiz to stay on the pitch when he should have been sent off (though he would eventually receive a second yellow).
Boateng didn’t necessarily agree with the decision to take away Buck’s goal.
“That was tough getting Noel [Buck’s] goal, a beautiful goal from him that should’ve counted I thought,” the 29-year-old said. “I don’t think Latif [Blessing] was in the goalie’s face, but to pull that back, we didn’t let that bring us down. It was a good mentality from us. You can see from the 17th minute when he scored up until Carles Gil’s goal, we were still pushing and controlling most of the game. So, I think the mindset of the team was pretty good and we’ve just got to keep pushing and don’t let those calls in the game drag us down. I think this team has a good mentality.”
Bye added that while a few calls might not have gone New England’s way, that doesn’t excuse leaving Miami with zero points.
“I think it can go either way; a lot of games are like that,” Bye said. “There are always one or two calls that you question, or you think about, but I think at the end of the day for 90 minutes we had the opportunity to prove that we were better, and we didn’t.”
Now, the Revolution are focused on going up against one of the giants in the Eastern Conference in recent years. New England will be headed down to Chester, Pennsylvania to take on the Philadelphia Union.
While Jim Curtin’s side has struggled a bit in 2023, a Curtin coached side is always going to give opponents a challenge. The Union will enter Saturday’s matchup against New England in sixth place in the Eastern Conference.
The Revolution will be well rested headed down to Pennsylvania as they didn’t have a mid-week match. Philadelphia on the other hand played a majority of their first-choice starting XI against D.C.
So if New England wants to right their wrongs and leave Chester with three points, they will need a complete effort. They can not afford to have another late start to a match.