Well, folks, we're 10 games into the 2026 Revs season. New England sits in 2nd place in the Eastern Conference, just ahead of Messi's Inter Miami, just as we all predicted at the beginning of the year.
The Revolution have amassed an impressive 6-1-3 (W-D-L) record and are a perfect 5-0-0 at home. At their current 1.9 ppg pace, they should expect to exceed last season's 36 points by early August, a fact made all the more impressive when you realize that the World Cup is pushing the MLS regular season all the way out to November this year.
Newly appointed head coach Marko Mitrovic has this team working together like a finely tuned engine. Matt Turner is back in peak form, Carles Gil is back to doing shirt-off celebrations, and we're seeing real impact from some of the younger players on the roster. Heck, Will Sands has his own fan club now. The turnaround has been nothing short of astounding.
But I can't quite get fully on board. I don't know why I'm like this.
I want, so badly, to just jump in with both feet and enjoy this recent run of form with no reservations. But there's this nagging part of me that isn't totally convinced; that's having a hard time squaring the performances with the results.
And, unfortunately, the underlying numbers agree.
"Expected" Stats
Listen, I get it. Nobody cares about expected goals when you have actual, real goals to look at.
Langosta with the strike! #NEvMTL | 1-0 https://t.co/ytQf2E5g59 pic.twitter.com/dCC8N1RqAT
— New England Revolution (@NERevolution) April 4, 2026
And real goals are something that the Revs have plenty of, 18 through 10 matches. On a per-game basis, they're top eight in the league for goals scored.
But, if you'll indulge me, the expected goals tell a very different story.
The Revs average 1.8 goals scored per match. Their expected goals values (per AmericanSoccerAnalysis) show that they should be scoring closer to 1.2 per match. That may not seem like a huge difference, but it's far and away the highest (positive) delta between those two values of any team in MLS this season.
In fact, if it holds, that 0.6g/90 difference would be the 3rd highest value in league history - at least since ASA began collecting xG stats in 2013.
It may not be surprising to see 2024 Inter Miami top the list. That team showcased Messi, Suarez, Alba, and Busquets and went on to set the MLS single-season points record.
There are plenty of similar examples on this list of "overacheivers" including treble-winning 2017 Toronto FC (Giovinco, Michael Bradley, peak Jozy Altidore), and the explosive expansion season from 2017 Atlanta United (Miguel Almiron, Josef Martinez). The only other team ahead of the Revs is 2020's COVID-shortened Portland Timbers season. I'll get to why that's important in a second.
OK fine.
So they're outperforming expectations on the offensive side of the ball. That's not a reason to sound alarm bells. Defensively they've been stout, shutting down the likes of Evander, Suarez, Zaha, and even Messi (for the first time).
All of that is true. It is also true that they're overperforming their expected goals against at a historic rate.
So they're overperforming on offense and on defense. That's not necessarily a bad thing. As Jake recently wrote, they're thriving on vibes. That's a good place to start, especially for a new coach.
Jake Catanese
Note in the table above that many of the larger defensive overperformers are teams from this current season. The sample sizes are small, and that often means that outliers are more commonplace. Opponents and circumstance play outsized roles on smaller datasets. That would explain why so many 2026 teams are at the top of the defensive standings, and perhaps why the 2020 Timbers ended as high as they did.
So the good news is that they're performing better than expected. The bad news is that oftentimes, overperformances regress to the mean given enough time. That means we could reasonably expect either their xG to increase or their actual goals to decrease.
