FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – The New England Revolution played the last home game of their 2024 regular season on Saturday night. Hopes were high coming in that the team would make it a positive send-off, one that might have even kept alive the team’s dream of postseason soccer. Unfortunately, that dream was not made a reality, with a 2-1 loss to D.C. United officially eliminating the Revs from playoff contention.
The Gillette Stadium crowd of over 44,000 certainly did their part to keep the dream alive down to the very last second of stoppage time, and the players on the field were still fervently searching for an equalizer into the game’s dying moments. But an early pair of goals from the Black-and-Red proved too much for New England on the night, and the mood from head coach Caleb Porter was solemn and somber in his postgame press conference.
“We're all down,” he said. “Obviously gutted, the whole team. We believed that we were going to win this game and that we still would have a chance. Start was not good. We were not ready for the race. You have to be ready for the race. The guys knew what the race was about. It was going to be about all the things that happened in the first 10 minutes. First and second balls, very direct. It was going to take fight and doing little, dirty things to win second balls, first balls, battling duels, and we just weren't ready to start the race. So, that cost us the game. Proud of the effort, obviously, in the second half and proud of the fight until the very last second. I thought when we went 2-1, that we would win the game. It just didn't happen for us.”
Defender Dave Romney echoed a similar sentiment in the locker room, praising his teammates for their effort but admitting his disappointment with both the result on the night and the season as a whole.
“We fought really hard, honestly, for I feel like the majority of the game,” he said. “Just that first spell. There were stretches in the first half, but second half we just gave everything, and guys were fighting until the last whistle. Everyone’s giving all and everything they have. It just feels like things haven’t bounced our way this year. It’s been very frustrating, so guys are obviously down and dejected. It’s tough to have a season full of these games where we feel like we left points on the board. But I’m not going to get mad at anybody for the effort they gave. Everyone left it all on the field.”
While the Revs may be done at home for the year, Porter emphasized that the team still had plenty to play for in their final two road trips of the campaign.
“We play for pride,” he said. “Obviously, it's a big thing, a chance to show our character, play for pride – pride in the club, our supporters. Obviously, it's been a disappointing season, but we have an obligation to continue to evolve and grow and develop for next year and the future. We're playing for pride. Pride for our club, pride for our job, pride for just who we are as people. And we have an opportunity, playing the best two teams in the league, to measure ourselves at the end of the year. We want to be where they're at – the last MLS Cup champion [Columbus Crew] and the Supporters’ Shield winner this year [Inter Miami CF]. So, that's what we want to be, so we have a chance to, in the last two games, measure where we're at going into next year.”
