Wasatch Soccer Sentinel
We spoke to Jake Catanese of The Blazing Musket ahead of RSL's clash against the New England Revolution to get some insight on the team.
1) New England had a rough start to the season but seem to be turning things around. Is there optimism with where the team is headed?
I think it's cautious optimism. Caleb Porter and Curt Onalfo think a playoff push is possible but the Revs would only be likely to grab one of the play-in game spots in the East (8th or 9th seed) since they were at the bottom of the East before the Montreal game. Health played a very big part of New England's issues early in the season and for Leagues Cup with Carles Gil, Giacomo Vrioni, Dylan Borrero all missing out and Tomas Chancalay is out for the year. It's very hard to get wins in MLS when all three of your DPs are out of action at the same time but I think the Revs gave a good showing in the Leagues Cup and got a lot of young players like left back Peyton Miller, winger Esmir Bajraktarevic, and midfielder Jack Panayotou a lot of quality minutes.
If the Revs make the playoffs they'll likely be on a pretty good run of form and I don't think a lot of teams want to try and deal with Carles Gil and company come November but it's a very big uphill climb to make a serious playoff run. The long term hope is the Revs use this late season push as a springboard to get off to a hot start next season and salvage what they can from 2024 which was supposed to be a major rebound year.
