Revolution Feel "Relief" After First MLS Win Of 2024

Porter: “Yeah, of course, there's relief when you get the first win in the league. It's been a long three months. A lot of the guys were hungry today."

Photo Courtesy of the New England Revolution

The New England Revolution got their first win of 2024 on Saturday when they defeated Charlotte FC 1-0.

Charlotte had a pair of early bids, including a 7th-minute chance on an open net, but couldn’t put the ball away.

The game then changed as the Revs were able to get up the field quicker to create opportunities. Once there, they could force high turnovers if possession was lost.

“The first 10 minutes again, it was more of like, keep the ball and go nowhere,” head coach Caleb Porter said. “That's not what I want, but then from there, they started playing forward and playing quicker and going to goal and all of a sudden, our tail went up and we started getting confident.”

The Revolution nearly got on the board in the 19th minute when Giacomo Vrioni rose up to connect with Tomas Chancalay’s cross but the striker’s header clanked off the crossbar.

The Revs got their first lead of the MLS season in first-half stoppage time on a quick transition.

Nacho Gil won a tackle before playing Vrioni. The Albanian found Carles, who slipped Nacho. Nacho’s shot was denied by the goalkeeper, but Carles was there to collect his second goal of the season.

“Great finish out of him, and thought he had a good game, a really good game,“ Porter said.

The second half came without incident for the Revs. Vrioni had a solid look inside the box but it went wide and Carles had a penalty shout waved away.

After enduring some late pressure from Charlotte, the home side collected three points for the first time during this MLS season.

“Yeah, of course, there's relief when you get the first win in the league,” Porter said. “It's been a long three months. A lot of the guys were hungry today. It wasn't perfect by any means, but we had a simple plan: defend well, get a clean sheet, and find the first goal.”

Henry Kessler, who played left center-back alongside Jonathan Mensah before moving to the right when Dave Romney replaced Mensah due to injury, agreed with his coach.

“It was an ugly win, but sometimes you have to win ugly,” Kessler said. “To get that first win, it kind of take some of that pressure off, and hopefully we can build on it.”

Porter credited the victory to having solid performances from several players.

“I think overall, we got good performances, not great performances, but if I had to rate guys, it’s probably six or seven across the board, which is good – it doesn't need to be a nine or 10,” Porter said. “But I thought we had overall consistent performances from the guys today, which was good to see.”