Revolution Depth To Be Tested Against Seattle

The Revs will play their third game in eight days on Saturday.

Photo Courtesy of the New England Revolution

The New England Revolution’s depth will be tested when they travel to Seattle this weekend to play their third match in eight days.

On Wednesday, the Revs defeated Atlanta United 2-1 to collect their fifth win in six games. The team trained today and will head to the opposite coast tomorrow morning.

“We had a session today with guys who didn’t play major minutes,” Porter said. “We recovered the guys who played major minutes. We took a few more injuries last night, so we’re looking at all options to fill our bench. We have to evaluate the health of the players as well.”

The Player Status Report before the midweek game had nine Revs players listed as either out or questionable.

Dylan Borrero ultimately started and played 62 minutes. Tommy McNamara and Bobby Wood made the bench but didn’t play.

“Bobby has been struggling with a knee and a calf all year,” Porter said. “He’s probably only able to play 15 minutes, at best, just with that knee. Tommy is coming back from injury. He’s been out almost two months, maybe he can play 30 minutes.”

Porter noted that a “couple” of second-team players will go to Seattle this weekend.

“We’re going to definitely travel some guys to give us a buffer and time to evaluate the health of players and where we’re at,” Porter said. “We’ll definitely travel a couple Revs II players.

“The only thing with that is there’s a rule where you can only dress one international [player] off of Revs II, so it turns out a couple of the guys we like are internationals. So, we’ll probably end up only dressing one Revs II player.”

The Revs have dealt with a host of injuries this year, which isn't necessarily abnormal. The head coach was asked for his assessment of recent injuries.

“Some of them are unavoidable,” Porter said. “I always feel this, having been through this before – when you start to get injuries, then you don’t have depth, so then you can’t rotate as much, and then you get more injuries. That’s kind of what has happened to us a little bit, so we need to break that cycle.

“It doesn’t help having the three games in the week. You get some guys who are playing more minutes than they should play, but there’s no other choice, unfortunately, with where we’re at.

“A few of them, I think, are guys who have had previous injury history, so that’s always something that you have to look at. For me, the number one reason a guy gets injured, is when he’s been a guy that gets injured. We have a few of those guys in this group.

“Some of them are contact, some of them, I think, like I said, just come down to them having to play more minutes than they have in the past, because of the situation we’re in.”

The positive for the Revs is that the team has recently found results despite absences.

Tomas Chancalay has been out since May 25 and will miss the rest of the season.

Borrero was out for two games before returning on Wednesday while Carles Gil has missed the last two and is “doubtful” for Saturday.

Other players have missed games as well.

“I’m proud of the fact that we’re getting results even though we have all this adversity that we’re dealing with,” Porter said.

Saturday will present a new test for the Revs.

Porter said that his team needs to “be very organized” against Seattle, who has “good players” and is “dynamic.”

“Good team, and at the back they are consistent, a lot of experience,” Porter said. “The core of that group has won a lot over the years in this league. Like you said, they have confidence right now.

“Our guys will be up for it. We’ve won five out of the last six games. We’re going to go in there, obviously, with belief and hopefully with a good plan, but it’s definitely a game where we have to be smart. This isn’t going to be a ‘Let’s go and play a swashbuckling approach,’ where we’re running around everywhere. We have to be organized, we have to be patient, and can we continue to be good defensively as a starting point?”