Lee Nguyen hasn’t been able to start the Revolution so far in 2016. Photo/Kari Heistad
By Matt Hoffman
Follow on Twitter at @mhoff
It’s a match between contestants in the last two MLS Cups when the Portland Timbers return to the pitch to play against the New England Revolution in Foxborough, Mass. (Wednesday, April 26 at 4:30 p.m. Pacific time).
Ordinarily a meeting of two sides with such recent success would be considered a marquee match up, but with both teams sitting on eight points in seven and eight games respectively, it’s understandable why the league’s attention is elsewhere.
Has the Revolution come full circle?
Let’s move from Foxborough, Mass., for one brief moment to Miami, Fla.. While we’re at it, let’s shift the sport to basketball.
Joe Johnson may be a seven-time All-star, but at 34, Johnson had become the third option on a very bad Brooklyn Nets team. Occupying a large portion of the salary cap (the NBA actually reports player salaries), the Nets cut Johnson, freeing him up to sign with any team in the league.
Joe Johnson’s disappointing season with the Brooklyn Nets ended with redemption in Miami. Photo courtesy of Black Sports Online.
Eschewing conventional wisdom, Johnson passed over Cleveland and jumped to the Miami Heat, improving the fortunes of both him and the franchise, in the process propelling the Heat to the third spot in the East and improving his numbers and defying logic all along the way.
Asked to explain the turnabout Johnson surmised his ascendancy to New York Times writer Alex Keh thusly:
“The game isn’t hard. Some teams, some people, have a tendency to make it hard, but it’s not hard. Just move the basketball, get the best available shot.”
Playing on a team that has given away several first-round picks (the draft is the primary way to acquire talent in the NBA), it’s understandable why Johnson would say that. Still even the bad teams have players who can inflate their stats playing for a bad team.
Going deeper with Sekou Smith of NBA.com, Johnson said:
“Honestly, this season in Brooklyn I was in a tough situation, playing with a lot of young guys, stat chasing guys that didn’t really want to win.”
Moneyball. Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures
Moneyball featured a bean-counting baseball general manager protagonist played by Brad Pitt in its motion-picture incarnation. But perhaps no sport became as entrenched with advanced statistics as the NBA. Using many of the same metrics, current league champions the Golden State Warriors recently broke the NBA record for most wins in a season.
Inflating a stat sheet has replaced the eye-test for many general managers. Wayne Gretzky once said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take,” but in this new NBA, reliable veterans like Johnson are shelved in favor of players who will pass up that best available shot unless it’s a spoon-fed dunk underneath the hoop.
Johnson’s experience doesn’t mean that a statistical fascination left unchecked is doomed to fail–you have the 2016 Houston Rockets for that. A stat-driven approach is only helpful when you have some human intuition invested.
Otherwise you’re just Patrick Bateman with draft picks and allocation money in lieu of Wall Street money.
Soccer’s love affair with advanced statistics has been far more turbulent. Companies like Opta and ProZone exist to collect soccer statistics and teams have taken to this approach in varying degrees but probably none more so than the New England Revolution.
Not only the focus of an MLS Insider episode, the Revs are so steeped in advanced statistics that when Jermaine Jones was having his contract dispute with the Revs this past Winter, he took to Instagram to promote his cause with soccer statistics.
The problem is, it’s not working. The Revs under coach Jay Heaps did make a MLS Cup final and have been in the playoffs, but so far this season, it’s led to a mediocre 1-2-5 record and few goals for a team with attacking chops to spare.
But for more objective analysis, I went to our own Prost Amerika stats guru, Chris Gluck who told me, “At home the Revolution are the worst attacking team in all of MLS..”
“The New England Revolution are the fifth worst in team defending and fifth worst in team attacking overall … that puts them at fourth worst across all of MLS in team performance.”
Noting that the Revs are among the worst passing and shooting teams in the league, Gluck summarizes:
“If ever three points were for the taking by the Timbers in an away match, it’s this one “
It certainly won’t help that the Revs cause that they are likely without some key players. Chris Tierney, called by Heaps, “the best left-back in MLS” is definitely out. (According to Brian O’Connell, editor and staff writer at New England Soccer Today, that distinction belongs to either veteran Je-Vaughn Watson or Darius Barnes.)
The injuries don’t stop with Tierney. Remember that offense stuck in neutral? It might not be going anywhere with the possibility of rookie Femi Hollinger-Janzen alone up top, as Teal Bunbury, Charlie Davies and Juan Agudelo are all limited by injuries.
Splinted Timbers
The Revolution won’t be getting much sympathy from the Timbers.
“I counted and there were only five players on the field to start the game from the championship game,” Caleb Porter said in his post-match remarks from the team’s last game, a 3-1 triumph over the San Jose Earthquakes.
Darlington Nabge and Darren Mattocks are both questionable but goalkeeper Adam Kwarasey and starting right back Alvas Powell are both out. Not on the report is Dairon Asprilla, but have you seen him lately? Liam Ridgewell (who invented the Ridgy roll in Foxboro) has been shelved while his DP counterpart, Diego Valeri, faces match suspension.
With the Timbers having a lengthy rest and a short turnaround before facing Toronto on Sunday, will Porter go with his veterans or shake it up?
Chris Klute has locked down the Timbers left back spot meaning Zarek Valentin has played right back in place of Powell, looking far more comfortable in his more natural position. Calling him “technical,” Porter referred Valentin as, “the guy who could help the Timbers build from the back:”
Zarek is a good passer out of the back. We were struggling a little bit in our possession and our build-up out of the back without [Liam Ridgewell] and Jorge [former Timbers defender Villafaña]was pretty good at that as well in terms of just his passing into the middle third and overlapping in the final third.”
Diego Chara is so entrenched in the midfield his name is probably permanently engraved in the team’s chalkboard but the other two are a mystery. It’s hard to believe that Caleb Porter will bring someone to supplant him. The dream of Lucas Melano playing in center of the field is probably not going to be realized in this match but Porter has had no qualms putting Ned Grabavoy there and perhaps with Jack Jewsbury completing the set.
That’s if Porter doesn’t just opt for the smash-and-grab twin forward set-up with the pairing of Fanendo Adi and Jack McInerney. The two strikers have combined for nine of the Timbers eleven goals.
Porter spoke of enjoying the versatility that the team enjoys though it’s doubtful Porter considered a squad potentially bereft of Valeri, Nagbe, and Ridgewell when he said that.
In three visits to Foxborough, the Timbers are a respectable 0-1-2. With both sides waging costly battles of attrition, I’m not sure either side will be disappointed to split the points.
Chris Gluck and Brian O’Connell contributed valuable information to this piece. Follow them on Twitter at ChrisGluckPWP and@BrianOConnell21.
New England
Portland Timbers
