FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – The New England Revolution are officially into the second half of the 2024 MLS season and, after a strong month of June that saw the team pick up 12 points from a possible 15, are still very much in the race for an Eastern Conference playoff spot. While this past Saturday’s result against the Columbus Crew was not what the team was hoping for, a quick turnaround to Wednesday night’s faceoff against Atlanta United FC gives the Revs an opportunity to put the loss behind them and refocus on this matchup with a key rival in the East standings.
Currently, the Revolution are sitting 14th in the Eastern Conference (6-11-1, 19 pts.), only five points behind the playoff line, albeit with two fewer matches played than most of the teams around them. The team currently occupying that last playoff spot in the East is none other than Atlanta United (6-8-6, 24 pts.), making Wednesday night’s clash all the more critical.
Head coach Caleb Porter said after Saturday night’s defeat that Wednesday’s game could be the bigger match of the week, and he echoed that feeling after training on Monday.
“It would have been nice to beat Columbus, but actually, [Atlanta] is probably, in some ways, the more important game, because you can’t lose to teams that are in around you and give them points,” he said. “They are in the hunt with us for the playoffs, so it’s really important we bounce back.”
That hunt for the playoffs is a topic that has come up more and more recently, particularly as the Revs’ hot streak started to see them climb up the table, with both the coach and the players talking about how their sights were staying set on playing postseason soccer. Midfielder Noel Buck said after training that the team was still as eager as ever to fight for their spot in late October.
“It’s a tough result against Columbus, but we still have confidence,” he said. “We know we’re a good team and it has to be the next game. This next game against Atlanta is vitally important for us to get three points … We are really hungry to make the playoffs. It was not a great start to the year, and we’re really looking to fix that.”
That loss to the Crew was no doubt a tough one to swallow, but in the end it may have come down to individual mistakes more than anything else. Those mistakes can be corrected, and Buck felt confident that the team would work them out in time for Wednesday’s game.
“We have got to take our chances and we’ve got to fix some errors,” he said. “Sometimes, just a lapse of focus can cost us goals and games. As a team, we’re looking to fix that and to keep improving as a team.”
Similarly, Porter said that his takeaways from the game boiled down to precision in attack and focus in defense, both areas in which mental improvements can be made.
“I don’t think it was so much tactics that cost us; it’s the finishing,” he said. “We had four really good chances to score. We didn’t score and that would have changed the game. Defensively, there were moments that we just needed to be more alert, more switched on, more hungry. It wasn’t a ton tactical that we did wrong. In fact, to start the game, everything was going as planned and we should have been up 2-0. That’s the other thing, you’ve got to finish your chances. Against good teams, they’re going to get chances, you’re going to get chances. It’s going to come down to who finishes. I just think on the day, they finished theirs and we didn’t.”
Porter added that one loss didn’t define the team – certainly not one against the defending league champions – and said that he was urging his players to not lose sight of how well they had played during their four-match winning streak through the month of June.
“I reminded the guys that we won four in a row,” he said. “We’re playing really well and we can’t forget about that. But we do need to use this last game as a little bit of a wake-up call and to continue to remind ourselves that we have to keep improving.”
The Atlanta team that New England faces midweek will look different from the one they fell to at Mercedes-Benz Stadium earlier this year, with head coach Gonzalo Pineda relieved of his duties a month ago and striker Giorgos Giakoumakis transferred to Cruz Azul a couple weeks later. With the secondary transfer window not set to open until later this month, the Five Stripes may come up to Foxborough feeling that they have to make the most of a thin squad. As the Revs have shown over the last month, though, a depleted squad does not necessarily translate to a defeated one, and New England will have to be at their best if they want to get a result against Atlanta.
For Porter, the best chance of doing that will come by taking what they can away from Saturday and leaving the rest behind them ahead of Wednesday.
“Those are all things we showed on film and talked about, and those are things we’ll correct,” he said. “But tomorrow, we’ll have to erase it, put it behind us, and get ready for Atlanta.”
