The New England Revolution started a new era, sans Jay Heaps, as well as could have been expected, grabbing a 2-1 victory over Toronto FC on Saturday at Gillette Stadium in interim coach Tom Soehn’s first game at the helm.
Lee Nguyen entered the match off the bench in the 64th minute and put the Revs up by finishing a Chris Tierney feed (82nd). Toronto would equalize two minutes later as Nicolas Hasler would loft a looping cross from Michael Bradley inside the far post, but New England reclaimed the lead as Kei Kamara headed in his 12th goal of the season off another Tierney cross three minutes from full-time.
That the Revolution were able to win such a seesaw match against best team in the league, particularly with the emotional toll of having Heaps fired last week, was impressive.
“It just shows how resilient the guys are,” said Nguyen. “We could have folded at any moment. That’s a tough way to go out, two-way wins or two-way losses like that. We didn’t give ourselves really much of a chance. Our heads could have gone down after that, but credit to the boys, we fought hard. We could have given up. They’re the best team in the league right now. They’ve shown it home and away, so it was a great fight. We were able to keep it 0-0 for the most part, and then to be able to get the two goals at the end showed the great fight.”
Granted, Toronto were without their main offensive spearhead, Sebastian Giovinco. But the Revolution have fared worse time and again this season against weaker opponents.
Beating the Revolution at Gillette Stadium continues to be challenging for all teams across the league. In fact, Foxborough has arguably the Revs’ greatest tool this season to keeping their slim post-season hopes alive.
That said, those playoff hopes are still alive. New England currently sit eighth in the Eastern Conference on 38 points, one behind Montreal and two behind the New York Red Bulls, who occupy the sixth and final playoff spot.
The Red Bulls and Montreal also have a game in hand on the Revolution. On the plus side, the Revolution play Montreal – albeit on the road – one more time this season, while the Red Bulls lost at Columbus this weekend.
New England have thrown away points numerous times this season, but the math still shows they have a chance – however remote – of making the playoffs. Home wins have had a way of bubbling up positivity, only to have it all dashed away once the team plays outside the friendly confines of Gillette Stadium.
Make no mistake: the Revolution need to win both their final road games – at Orlando on Wednesday and away at Montreal on October 22 – in addition to taking maximum points from home games against Atlanta and NYCFC. Along the way, the Revs need Montreal and the Red Bulls to implode.
There’s a convergence of challenges here. It would be a failure if the Revolution don’t make the playoffs…it would also be a failure for the Revolution to remain winless on the road; there’s basically no way for them to even dream about the post-season without at least one road win this year.
The situation is much like the one in 2009, when the Revolution needed a tie or win in their final game of the regular season to clinch a playoff berth and were playing at Columbus, who were unbeaten at home coming into the season finale. The Revolution won that game, 1-0, and eked into the playoffs.
Columbus was in the inverse situation – unbeaten at home as opposed to winless on the road. The point is that the odds of a streak staying in tact drop with every passing day. The Revolution are talented enough to win on the road, they just haven’t done it this season. Will they finally find their magic in Orlando? They might be due for a win away from Foxborough, even if their playoff odds are bleak at best.
“For five games, we’re going to enjoy ourselves and we’re going to be the best team we can be and I’m going to focus on that team thing over and over again,” said Soehn. “Today, when we came together as a team, you saw how dangerous that can be. Again, a big obstacle on the road—that we haven’t done that yet—but if we show up as a team, I like our chances.”
