New England Revolution 1 – 2 Chicago Fire S.C.
I feel like I have to say something about last night’s match between the Revolution and the Fire but I’m not sure I can do it without harming myself. With that in mind, I’ll keep this VERY brief.
All I wanted at the beginning of the season was for the Revs to be better this year- not even “good,” just better than last year. Maybe they’d start off a little shaky, but match-by-match, they’d improve. Instead, I and every other Revolution supporter has been given just the opposite.
The personnel decisions made by the front office have been bad enough that the jobs of everyone involved should be in jeopardy when the season ends. By my count they brought in somewhere between 15 and 18 new players this year and Lee Nguyen is the only one who has played well consistently. Saer Sene gets a pass for now because I don’t think the midfielders give him much to work with…though his mind seems to wander during matches as well. Jerry Bengston gets an incomplete. Mark my words, new signing Dimitry Imbongo will be playing for the Charleston Battery or the like within a year’s time. Everyone else has been average or worse, much, much worse- I’m looking at you Jose Moreno. Oh, and they traded away the team captain.
Coaching-wise, I like Jay Heaps’ attitude but I question his aptitude. From the small things- thinking the possibly-mute Clyde Simms could replace Shalrie Joseph as captain- to allowing Benny Feilhaber to sulk his way through match after match after match. I’ll give him a pass for his “musical chairs” line-up because I’m not sure he has the talent to put out a competitive eleven on a regular basis anyway. Still, when it is so clear that there is a group of players who are just “going through the motions” and that the club isn’t going anywhere near the playoffs, what’s the point in not seeing what the young players (Fagundez, Rowe, Polak, Purdy, etc.) can do?
Finally, the players. I’ll make this as simple as I can: until you start playing for the name on the front of the shirt instead of on the back of the shirt it is never, ever going to get any better.
