New England Revolution

3 takeaways as the Revolution salvaged a 1-1 draw against Chicago

The streak of consecutive losses was broken, but Caleb Porter's team still walked away disappointed with Saturday's result at Gillette Stadium.

By Hayden Bird

March 23, 2024

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The Revolution could only manage a 1-1 draw at home against the Chicago Fire on a rainy Saturday, though it did result in Caleb Porter’s first MLS point as New England’s head coach.

The draw—albeit a disappointment given that the Revolution were playing at Gillette Stadium—broke an ignominious streak of four consecutive losses to start the regular season. CONCACAF Champions Cup remains the bright spot at the outset in 2024 (which resumes Tuesday when New England hosts one of Mexico’s top teams, Club America, in the first of a two-leg matchup).

Chicago got the scoring going in the 20th minute via Belgian forward Hugo Cuypers after a direct counterattack proved too quick for the Revolution defense.

Nacho Gil tallied New England’s goal for the day almost on the stroke of halftime, nodding home a rebound after Chicago goalkeeper Spencer Richey parried Carles Gil’s cross.

The second half failed to produce too many clear-cut goal-scoring opportunities, as the visitors sat increasingly deep in their own half to defend the away point.

Porter’s team were a pass away on several instances, but ultimately couldn’t find a winning goal.

Here are a few takeaways:

Revolution still searching for the kind of “control” Caleb Porter wants.

Since he first made a point to illustrate this at his initial press conference in January (and again in various comments since then), Porter has outlined that he wants the Revolution to “control” games.

Much of the strategy appears to revolve around simply keeping possession. There’s quite a bit of merit to that as a means of controlling games—the other team can’t score if they don’t have the ball—yet New England has proven far too brittle on counterattacks in 2024 for this strategy to be totally sound.

The Revolution controlled possession for 64 percent of the game on Saturday, but all it took was one misplaced pass for Chicago to pounce. Fire midfielder Maren Haile-Selassie jumped on the loose ball, and two quick passes later, the ball was at Cuypers’s feet in a perfect scoring position (from which he did not miss).

From there, the dynamic of the game flowed mostly in New England’s favor—the Revolution held a superior xG of 2.19 vs. 0.91—but slow buildup play hindered the creation of scoring opportunities.

That said, there were flashes of potential in New England’s attack, with Nacho Gil’s goal being the most obvious one. Revolution winger Tomás Chancalay switched from his usual left wing to the right midway through the first half, and found the run of left back DeJuan Jones with a well-struck cross-field pass.

Jones collected possession, hesitated, and back-heeled the ball into space down the left for Carles Gil. The Spanish playmaker crossed, and his brother took full advantage of Richey’s rebound:

Earl Edwards had an up-and-down day in goal.

Earl Edwards, New England’s 32-year-old backup goalkeeper, got his first start since the playoff defeat against the Philadelphia Union last fall. Normal starter Henrich Ravas was on international duty with Slovakia.

In Ravas’ absence, Edwards made some strong saves. Possibly the best (and most important) came in stoppage time when he dove to his right to stop Kellyn Acosta’s free kick that bounced right in front of the goal with Chicago players lurking in the box.

The goal he conceded was in no way his fault, especially considering Cuypers made no mistake (roofing the ball with an unstoppable finish).

Edwards’ highest-profile mistake almost cost New England dearly, though he made up for it in the end. Receiving a back pass from Jones, Edwards took too long to take a touch and try to clear it. Chicago forward Georgios Koutsias got a partial block on the attempted clearance and collected the rebound. Fortunately for the Revolution, Edwards had enough sense to drop back towards goal and (eventually) make the save on Kousias’ shot.

Officiating continues to be a question mark for MLS.

Just as was arguably the case against Cincinnati a week ago, the officiating lost control of the game in the latter part of the second half.

This was especially true in the final 10 minutes on Saturday. The problem began to escalate after a strange no-call on a fairly obvious foul on Carles Gil inside Chicago territory. As if to even things out, the referee let several additional fouls go (some in New England’s favor) in the next few minutes.

This inevitably resulted in an even tougher tackle on Nacho Gil that finally forced a call, after which a shoving match ensued between the two teams. The rest of the game played out under similarly physical circumstances.

The effect of the ongoing lockout of regular MLS referees has been put under an increasing microscope in recent weeks. And while other games have presented far more obvious (and consequential) missed calls, it was clearly on display again at Gillette Stadium on Saturday.

That said, New England has only itself to blame for not walking away with three points against Chicago. It was a very winnable game. Now, with Club América coming to town on Tuesday, Porter’s team will face a much more difficult test.