New England Revolution
New England squandered a 2-0 lead as Miami claimed the Revolution’s former MLS regular season points record.
The Revolution’s nightmare 2024 season ended with a thud in a 6-2 road loss against Inter Miami on Saturday night. Lionel Messi made a comparatively brief cameo (entering in the 57th minute), yet his presence unsurprisingly resulted in an avalanche of goals, breaking what had been a 2-2 tie.
Four second-half goals — three of which were scored by Messi — put Caleb Porter’s team emphatically on the losing end of the Decision Day matchup.
Of course, the “decisions” that faced New England on the league’s annual final league day were purely historic: Already eliminated from the playoffs, the Revolution only hoped to prevent Miami from overtaking their 2021 regular season points record.
In the end, they failed, as Messi and company overcame a multi-goal deficit with six unanswered goals. The final few minutes featured Miami scoring circus-style goals seemingly for show, the crowd delighting with each successive highlight-worthy finish from Messi.
The offseason now beckons for the Revolution, closing the book on one of the worst seasons in club history (the defeat, New England’s 21st of the year, ties the single season team record).
Here are a few takeaways:
The game was a fitting send-off for a flawed team.
With the game being played in Miami, and especially given the stakes — a win clinching the greatest regular season in league history — the Revolution were always set to play the role of the Washington Generals to Inter Miami’s Harlem Globetrotters on Saturday night.
Initially, however, New England appeared to veer off-script when another Argentine — Revolution winger Luca Langoni — scored in the first 90 seconds:
Incredibly, New England wasn’t done. Alhassan Yusuf (more on him in a bit) was once again central to the good play, cutting inside and finding winger Dylan Borrero alone in the box.
Borrero’s finish was far from perfect, but the ball luckily squirmed through the legs of Miami goalkeeper Drake Callender:
Through 34 minutes, it appeared that the Revolution had saved up all of their luck for the final game of the season. And it gave a brief moment of hope for fans to maybe dream of keeping the points record.
Yet this game was destined to become a greatest hits of the 2024 Revolution: Squandered opportunities, poor defending (especially on set pieces), and just a general lack of consistency through the course of an entire game.
Each of those traits, which have had extended runs in New England’s near-bottom of the standings performance this season, was given one last showcase.
Faced with a 0-2 deficit, Miami turned to its stars, with Luis Suarez scoring twice in quick succession to level things before halftime. Especially on the second goal, he was given far too much space to receive the ball in midfield and turn toward goal.
And in the second half, Messi’s entrance immediately led to a Miami breakthrough. His perfectly-weighted flick put Inter left back Jordi Alba in, allowing the Spaniard to cross for a Benjamin Cremaschi tap-in.
Messi’s ensuing trio of goals became progressively more impressive. New England correspondingly seemed to melt as Miami grew in stature with each goal. By the final tally, a true masterpiece (with Suarez in particular applying a highlight-level assist), Revolution players hardly seemed to react.
And yet, it was also a game of squandered opportunities for the Revolution. Even amid a plethora of defensive blunders, it should be noted that forward Giacomo Vrioni in particular had several clear-cut chances that were missed.
“They easily could’ve had six goals tonight,” Apple TV+ commentator and former Revolution goalscorer Taylor Twellman noted around the 70th minute during the broadcast.
The combination of defensive lapses with missed chances — adding in a touch of poor midfield positioning — ensured it was a perfect summation of the problematic 2024 Revolution (ending, fittingly, with yet another defeat).
An uncertain path forward.
The game ended with Miami scoring a series of elaborate goals, reveling in the flash and style that accompanies any team featuring its former Barcelona contingent.
They were scoring for fun, with New England hardly factoring in the proceedings over the final 20 minutes.
It begs the question of where exactly the Revolution go from here? It’s clear that an important offseason now faces the team’s management. A few priorities stand out:
Clean up the defense: The Revolution sported one of the worst defensive records in MLS history in 2024, allowing 74 goals. New England finished perilously close to the record for worst league defense (a tie between the 2024 Earthquakes and 2019 FC Cincinnati at 75 goals allowed). Changes (probably to the center-back grouping) will be coming.
Fixing the forward position: Vrioni’s contract runs through the 2025 season, but the club needs to add another forward regardless of what happens with the mercurial Designated Player. Vrioni hasn’t proven anything close to consistent enough for what a winning MLS team needs from its center forward. Given that this was a glaringly obvious issue even in preseason, some of the blame for this has to also fall on the front office.
Add a holding midfielder: As Saturday in Miami once again demonstrated, the midfield tandem of Matt Polster and Yusuf is potentially redundant, with both players naturally charging box-to-box. This often leads to gaps forming between defense and midfield — Suarez exploited the space for his second goal. Fixing this will be an interesting task for New England, and will probably require the acquisition of a more disciplined, holding midfielder.
Yusuf looks like a quality addition.
Other than Langoni — another genuinely quality player that New England has managed to add in a difficult season — Yusuf stood out as the most consistent impact player for the Revolution in the game.
He led the team in touches and passes, frequently popping up wherever teammates needed him all over the field.
Most importantly, he was directly involved in both of New England’s goals, including a nice nutmeg of Miami center back David Martínez in the lead-up to Borrero’s admittedly lucky finish.
In a lost season, Revolution fans can find a small amount of solace in the fact that the club managed to add a few decent signings in 2024. Whether they can build off of adding players like Yusuf in 2025 remains to be seen, but the Nigerian’s energy and quality seem like a nice image for New England fans to focus on until next season.
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