It's been a tough few years for Carles Gil and his immense talent, vision for the game and drive to win. Three of the last four seasons have ended with no playoff qualification for the New England Revolution and another year off Gil's career checked off. That won't be the case in 2026. The question now is: can the Revs finish 4th and have home-field advantage in the first round of the playoffs?
They certainly looked like a top-four team on Sunday afternoon against an admittedly not so top four looking Columbus Crew with a convincing 3-1 win. Columbus is a team in flux and having a bad year, but they took an early lead and still have enough guys in the team who remember what it took to be winners from 2023 to 2025.
The Revs have been struggling to find attacking balance in the final third all season. They've mostly been building and creating up the right side, especially since Jack Harrison has arrived. But slowly in recent weeks they have started to find more time and space on the left with the excellent play of both Peyton Miller and Alhassan Yusuf. The fruits of this finally showed out on Sunday, but not on either side of the field; rather, it was in the center.
It was from the center of the field where Gil slipped the ball to Dor Turgeman for his much preferred type of opportunity, a one-touch shot that needed to be hammered on target. It might be the only reliable way in which Turgeman can score and Gil served it to him just how he needed it. Gil then killed the game off with a sublime lob into the right corner from the left side of the goal.
Gil was operating where he can pick teams apart, drifting across the width of the penalty area looking to set up his teammates or go for goal on his own. He's spent far too much time in deeper positions and wide and deep on the right in recent years. He was in those spots because he felt like he needed to be to make anything happen further up the field. But as this season has worn on, he's come to trust Ethan Kohler and Brooklyn Raines to advance the ball from deep so he can stay higher. He played 86 passes on Sunday; only 18 were attempted in the Revs half.
And he is thriving with the space afforded to him, having Harrison and Miller on either flank being too capable of creating to be ignored. He has the reliable Yusuf playing box to box and crashing the penalty area. He may also be starting to figure out how to get the most out of Turgeman's one-dimensional ability to score.
What's even more enticing is Ilay Feingold is once again available for selection at right back. If he gets back into a starting role within the next few weeks, opponents are going to be challenged to deal with his overlapping runs and threat on crosses playing off Harrison, who was being double-teamed throughout Sunday's game. Harrison is making Gil a better player, and Gil is going to make everyone else a better one on top of that.
If the Revs do indeed bring in Daniel Gazdag, he could be the attacking threat that puts the Revs over the top and into a side fully capable of a playoff run. Gazdag struggled heavily in Columbus, particularly under Wilfried Nancy. That was a difficult situation for him to come into; Columbus played with a fluid front three in a truly dynamic system. It was a style of play that MLS has never seen; it was never going to be a good fit for every player that came in.
Gazdag was a massive goal-scoring threat for three years before that with the Philadelphia Union. He isn't so old or so far removed from that success to be unable to get back to it. Should he do so, the Revs have picked up a multifaceted attacking player who could perform at a DP level without the contract or roster designation.
Don't worry about what position he's played in the past to score all those goals. He may have been a second striker, center attacking mid, a twin 8, a false this or an inverted that. Doesn't matter.
What matters is what he's capable of, and he's capable of a lot. Just in watching back 20-25 minutes of his glory days with the Union, it's clear that he can score goals in a variety of ways. Most simply, he can score with both feet and his head.
Beyond that, he scored goals cleaning up rebounds inside the six, scruffy goals, and poacher's goals. Go even deeper, and you'll see he's scored goals on the counter, running in behind as the furthest man forward, making the first run and making the secondary run.
In support of the attack, he's been capable of holding up the ball, dropping off the front line and playing in teammates. He has the skill set to fit right into this team as the tip of the attack. Marko Mitrovic doesn't look at what positions players have played or what role they've played; he looks at what they're capable of, what he can ask them to do.
Raines was a safe-passes-only-please-center-mid with Houston, but Mitrovic saw he could do more. Miller was pegged as a left back by everyone (almost everyone); Mitrovic saw his talents were better suited elsewhere. He may be doing the same thing here with Gazdag; if he sees a center forward, we may be in for some outstanding soccer this fall. So let's not label him just yet, and please, please don't call him a false nine if he plays up top.
This column is on the verge of throwing its full-throated support behind Mitrovic and the Revs; we're nearly there. The latest development is the chart below, a truly wonderful sight to see for those of us who believe in a particular way of playing. The Revs average height of defensive actions was nearly 50 meters away from their goal on Sunday! 50!
There are two relatively different ways to deal with the issue of being exploited centrally in a mid-block: tighten up horizontally and get deeper or push higher and stretch vertically. The Revs boldly chose, on the road no less, to push higher and get more vertical. Their defensive shape was much more of a 4-1-4-1 (we missed this one in our list of suggestions last week) instead of a 4–4-2. This subtle shift allowed the Revs to mark tighter centrally and avoid getting opened and overloaded in this critical space. They coupled that with more aggressive man-to-man marking than we've seen all over the field in many moments during the game. It completely shut down and blunted the Crew's buildup; they never really adjusted and the Revs, by being bold, ran out comfortable winners.
If we can have this team continue to evolve and become a team with an average height of defensive actions over 40 and closer to 45 by season's end to go along with Gil and all his friends attacking talents, a 4th place finish could just be the start of some good times around these parts.
Oh! We almost forgot, don't forget to get out and vote in the Massachusetts Primary Election tomorrow. Yours truly will be at the polls at 7 am ready to cast a vote for the only progressive candidate running for the Senate this year.
Editor's Note: And shoutout to everyone who voted early!
