My MLS team played like adverse shit in the second half of the year; they can do so much better

I beg the pardon of my book readers and fans on Goodreads who will see and read this piece about sports and wonder if I’ve lost my mind. On the contrary; while I haven’t been writing fiction lately—and more on that later this weekend, perhaps—this piece has stewed within me, and with a few extra hours of silence today, this is what my mind spat out.

And besides, without a true home for my sports ramblings any longer, this will have to do. Hey, George R.R. Martin talks about the Giants and the Jets on his page; I can do the same on mine.

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On Wednesday, the New England Revolution bowed out of the MLS Cup Playoffs, its season sealed on another late-in-the-game goal. While it’s just one game, and the final one, at that, it was a microcosm of a season that should have been, a season that unraveled in the dog days of summer.

The fact of it is that it happened, but that it shouldn’t have. The Revs were sailing high, sitting second in the East as the Leagues Cup competition opened.

But then the bottom dropped out: Bruce Arena, hired when the bottom dropped out the last time in May 2019, placed on paid administrative leave for purported insensitive comments in the locker room. Richie Williams served in his stead—but then we learned a month or so later that he was the rat who went to MLS and reported Arena… and that meant a man who hadn’t coached in the head capacity in the American top flight had weaseled his friend out of a job. Arena resigned.

Soon after, Williams was “re-assigned” and Clint Peay, who had been the gaffer at Revs II in MLS Next Pro and another who hadn’t coached this high, took over for the rest of the season.

The rest of the season resumed on August 26, 11 games to go, and Williams had charge of the Revolution for the next four games, where New England had a win, two draws, and a loss, with seven points dropped in the latter stages of three games.

With seven games remaining and the second change made, the Revs held a “news conference” where nothing of substance went out, and Curt Onalfo made his “It’s time to get out there and play and stop talking about all the baloney. It’s noise. We’re going to focus on winning” speech… which apparently fell on deaf ears in the locker room, and was a running joke on the #NERevs hashtag on Twitter.

In those last seven regular season games, the Revolution won two, lost four, and drew one before the playoffs began. And the playoffs happened. The Revs went down a man early on Wednesday, and that 79th-minute dagger pretty much ended a season which started out so well, only to turn out like dog shit.

In short, the Revs got what they deserved. The fans, who deserve better than a team who shits the bed year in and year out, are rightly pissed.

And as the season ends, here are the things the Revolution need to do in order to set this team back on the Right Path.

Clean house

Revs fans may recall my time on the beat with BSJ and my own entity where I pleaded with management to clean house of the dead weight that had permeated this roster. And that has, for the most part, been done: there are, from my cursory look at the roster, only four players remaining from the Mike Burns Error.

But there are several people—four—who need to go, and yesterday would not be soon enough. Those four, of course, are Brian Bilello, Onalfo, Peay, and Williams.

Bilello and Onalfo’s press conference on September 13th was rather fucking comical. Bilello, of course, is the court jester of spin control in Foxborough, and his non-answers were just that. Typical for a football club who can’t be transparent, even though transparency was promised in 2014. Add in the fact that he was absent on Twitter, even his lame, “The result wasn’t what we wanted” tweets would have been appreciated, showing that the front office gave a shit. Onalfo’s aforementioned comment was meant to be serious, but it became a running joke with the most die-hard supporters of the club. Get rid of both of these two clowns.

To be fair to Peay, he did a great job and should continue to do a great job with the second team. But with the first team, he was pretty much set up to fail. He had no experience coaching at this level, and was clearly out of his depth, especially when it came to substitution strategy. Give him his thanks, and shuffle him back to the reserves.

For Williams, he truthfully ruined this team’s chances because, if what has been reported is true, he felt aggrieved by the lack of a job in 2024. Quietly ship him away and never speak his traitorous name again.

Hire a proven coach

We’ve seen what a proven, capable manager can do for this soccer team. Arena came in after Mike Lapper—and we wouldn’t say no to Mike coming back—buoyed the team in May/June 2019, and he righted the ship, leading the team to the Supporter’s Shield and breaking the club’s playoff-less drought.

Once the Revs have capable leadership in the front office—we’re certainly not going to get it from those two chuckleheads—the club needs to find a gaffer who can instill quick confidence. We thought we were getting that with Brad Friedel in 2018. That didn’t happen.

Finding someone with smart tactics who can properly manage the lads and sub personnel properly needs to be A1 on the agenda.

Apologize profusely to the fans

The entirety of 2023 was an utter shitshow with the Revs, from how it started—annnnnd stickerssssssssss—to how it finished. They’ve taken away the great membership perks. They stayed silent on Arena when they really needed to speak publicly and reassure the fans that they would bring in a quality replacement. That’s not how a Major League team operates. They don’t treat their fans with such utter disrespect.

This club has operated under the guise of—and I’ve written this before—that they have given us Division 1 soccer, we should be damn grateful, and not to question them. It’s an absolute travesty how they treat the fan base.

Just apologize. It’s horse shit that they haven’t, and empty platitudes don’t cut it.

 www.seansweeneyauthor.com