FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – With the 2024 secondary transfer window closing tonight, it’s safe to say the Revolution have made a statement of intent for the rest of this MLS season and the burgeoning Caleb Porter era of New England soccer. Four additions, improved salary cap flexibility, and club records broken for a single signing and single window – along with, it must be said, a couple difficult goodbyes – have positioned the Revs for success through the end of this regular season, into next year, and beyond.
Speaking to the media on Wednesday, Revolution Sporting Director Curt Onalfo explained that the front office and coach Porter had been unified on a strategy for this summer that would prioritize attacking the remainder of the MLS season in pursuit of a playoff spot while also preparing the roster – in terms of both composition and flexibility – for further success in 2025. He also offered promising updates on the arrivals of winger Luca Langoni and midfielder Alhassan Yusuf, who will be crucial to the team’s push for postseason soccer over the coming weeks.
“It was a very busy period of time for us,” Onalfo started, “an extremely busy month. Our goal going into this transfer window was to make sure we got better immediately, right now, so that we can make a legitimate push to make the playoffs over the last 11 games of the season. Then, also, to position ourselves to be better next season as well. We were able to accomplish that with the four moves that we made during this window.”
Onalfo echoed the philosophy that Porter has highlighted over the past month, that, “Every transfer window, we want to get better.” He added that summer windows were often a prime opportunity to do just that, given the higher level of global transfer activity during the same time, and said that this one was an opportunity he and the club were not going to pass up.
“For us, we wanted to be active,” he said. “Whenever you put a new coach in place, there is a period of time where you need probably three windows to really kind of make the team the coach’s. This was our second window; we wanted to make sure it was impactful.”
Onalfo pointed to Argentinian winger Langoni as evidence of that very intent, saying La Langosta would be a dynamic attacker who would contribute to the team scoring more goals. During the Wednesday morning press conference, he also offered a boost for those hoping to see Langoni in Foxborough soon.
“We made a record club signing with Langoni,” Onalfo said. “He is on a flight right now, so he will be in very shortly. He is going to need to get physical work and all that kind of stuff done when he gets here. He will be probably training by the end of the week and be training all of next week preparing for Montréal.”
As for Yusuf, the Revolution’s other overseas signing of the window, Onalfo had fewer specifics, saying the visa application process had begun without being able to offer a concrete timeframe.
Onalfo acknowledged the difficulty of making outbound moves, particularly in the case of players like DeJuan Jones and Henry Kessler, both of whom had been drafted into MLS by the Revolution. But he nevertheless felt that their trades were positive for the club in the end, and expressed his happiness with where they left the roster’s depth, particularly at the left back position.
“We got players, but we also got money, so that gives us flexibility,” Onalfo said of the trades. “Our goal is to continually get better. Sometimes you have to make moves that it’s never fun to [make, moving] players that you care about. I’m sure the fans felt it and we felt it probably more because we work with them every day. It is all part of the business. In the case of DeJuan, he is a lovable guy and we already miss him. He is an athletic player, he has got that incredible smile. But we had the emergence of Peyton [Miller], who is a really talented young player, and then we were able to get a left-footed player with Will Sands that, between the two of them, puts us in a really good position in Caleb’s model. With Caleb’s model, he likes his outside backs getting forward, but he likes them to be left-footed guys on the left side and right-footed guys on the right side, and a premium on keeping the ball. Those were all parts of the things that we thought about as we made those moves.”
Onalfo continued to stress that the team’s activity in the transfer window was a collective effort that incorporated the entire front office as well as coach Porter. Bolstered by Head of Player Recruitment David Kammarman, whom Onalfo lauded as “outstanding” in his first transfer window with the club, and benefitting from the experiences of Technical Director Remi Roy and Assistant Sporting Director Chris Tierney, Onalfo said he had been pleasantly surprised at how easy the first-year head coach was to work with.
“Caleb is outstanding at this,” the Sporting Director said. “Quite frankly, I’ve never been around a coach that is that detail-oriented, [who] knows exactly what he wants. A lot of times, coaches aren’t as clear with exactly what they want; with Caleb, he knows what he wants. That makes it easier for us because the profile is very clear, so the game model is very clear. We feel really good about the knowledge that we have in the building and we’re just going to continually make it better.”
There’s no getting around the fact that New England had a difficult start to the season on the field. Onalfo, though, was unfazed in his confidence in what the team can still accomplish this season and beyond.
“I’m steadfast,” Onalfo said. “Caleb is a championship-caliber coach. He has won championships with two clubs and he’s going to win a championship here. It’s that simple. I’m unwavering in my belief in our project. The Krafts are the same way, and so is Brian [Bilello], our President. It’s really important. It’s a profession where there are a lot of ups and downs. If you can just stay even keeled throughout the difficult times, there will be more of those [stretches] of winning five of six games. Hopefully, that’s how we can start this next stretch. We believe in what we’re doing.”
The team will be busy in training this week, but that final stretch starts in earnest in just over a week, as the Revs kick off the last third of the season with a trip to face CF Montréal on August 24. It will be a challenging run of games, with seven of their last 11 on the road and powerhouses Columbus Crew, Real Salt Lake, and Inter Miami CF among the hosts. But if the players and staff were unified on the best transfer strategy for the team over the past month, they are certainly just as united in their belief in how far this team can go in the coming weeks.
