The New England Revolution have won three of three home games this season and can match last year's home win total with thirteen games to spare if they win on Saturday night.
It's an incredible possibility that highlights the brutal 2025 home campaign and the promise of a new beginning in 2026. The Revs do need to get points on the road, but they can start to face that reality down next week.
Let's take a quick look at what the Revs need to pull together for a complete performance tomorrow night. We can dare to ask for more than just a win by any means approach from this team, at least at home.
We should start to expect more; don't settle for just not being miserable. Let's dare to ask for some wonderful displays of bold, attacking soccer on the grass at Gillette.
Thanks to MLS Analytics on BlueSky, we can look at some visuals from last week's win against D.C. United to see what went well, improvement from the week prior, and where there might still be more to ask from this team.
What went undeniably well last week was the Revs getting to grips quickly in shutting down D.C. United's attacking play. It seemingly only took one shot to ding off the post early on an early United shot for the Revs to raise their defensive intensity.
MLS Analytics puts shots into one of four xG buckets, very simply ranging from great to good to average to poor. D.C. United had exactly zero great shots, just one good shot, and a smattering of average and poor shots on the night. Has D.C. United been a prolific goal-scoring machine this season?
No. And neither has this week's opponent, Columbus.
The Revs would do well to skip the early alarm bell from a shot dinged off the post of Matt Turner's goal and get straight into shutting down Columbus as they did with D.C. a week ago.
Now, if you let your eyes glaze over to the Revs side of this graphic, you can probably guess the biggest area of improvement to look for this week!
The resilient Revs defending was great but they themselves registered zero great shots, one good one and two average shots. None of these shots came inside the six-yard box either. For that game itself all that mattered was they got a goal and won the game.
Over the longer term, they're going to have games where they'll need to generate shots inside the six-yard box to create some more high-percentage chances.
We've talked about the Revs preoccupation with doing nearly all their attacking down the right side in recent weeks. It reached an extremely right-sided bias two weeks ago against Montreal.
We did see a bit of a shift to the left last week with their passing in the attacking third. They have been getting results with this heavy focus on the right side, but Luca Langoni was quieter than usual against DC.
Could teams be game planning to over-shift and get tight to the Revs right-sided players?
Even with more of a presence on the left side, none of the Revs penalty box entry passes came from the left, and only one came from the center of the field. Every pass into the area was a right-to-left pass. At least offering a nominal threat on the left side would do the Revs well in creating a bit more space for the likes of Langoni and Carles Gil, to operate.
For the second game in a row, the Revs looked a little too complacent to sit on a lead for long spells. The D.C. game did at least see a late attacking surge to finish strong, and the Revs looked more likely to kill the game off than concede a goal and drop two points.
Their willingness to press was more evident last time out. The Revs should be on the front foot with or without the ball more often than not when at home.
After making defensive interventions closer to their goal than their average against Montreal, the Revs swung back in the other direction against D.C. and engaged higher up the field with their press than they typically do. They're neither a high pressing team or a passive defensive team; they're right about middle of the pack in MLS.
The Bielsa disciples among us here at The Blazing Musket (a group of one) want to see a constant high press engaging closer to fifty meters away from their own goal. But that isn't everyone's jam and it's not a guarantee of success either. We should, though, expect the home team to be taking the game to their opponent with enough gusto to at least keep that average distance over forty meters away from their goal.
A fourth win in four at home will be cause for celebration if the Revs can get it done, no matter the performance or scoreline. The team is capable of more than just scraping by; they have a coach who wants to do more than scrape by.
And what better way to get ready to hit the road than a fourth win at home and a complete performance from start to finish to go with it.
