The good: 1. Revs scored first 2. Jones came in and showed why he is on another level But, personally not reading too much into the win: 1. No Bradley 2. Red Card 3. Vanney waving white flag so basically no Giovinco If Revs are MLS Cup contenders, they should win games like this. But they also need to beat full strength top sides. Just amazing how much Jones makes a difference, and as someone who has been leading this parade, it is now starting to concern me. Jones call the meeting, Jones start training, Jones gets into the games....that cannot be our only way we get back to MLS Cup and win it finally.
Agreed, but even with the lineup that Toronto fielded, the Revs get credit for a "must win", IMO. When you look at the eastern conference, there are a total 15 games in hand for teams in playoff positions in the table, and a total of 8 games in hand from the four teams that are sub-playoff. We're in the driver's seat for the teams trailing us, but unless DC has a Revo-esque case of fixture congestion w/ the CCL, we're not catching them. I'll take points whatever way we can.
Even before Altidore self-destructed we had the better of the play and were up 1-0. And remember those previous teams that were similarly missing players that we failed to beat... SKC had two fullbacks with zero experience and no Espinoza. The Crew beat us without Wil Trapp. Vancouver beat us without Waston or Koffie.
Why not? As long as it works! - Jones hasn't lost his touch with those long, cross-field switching passes. That alone makes us a much more dangerous team. For a change, our attackers don't have to always face a full defense behind the ball. - One of Davies' talents is being the quickest guy to react to loose balls in the box. That created two close-in goals. - Agudelo actually looked the best he has in a while - playing up top, instead of on the wing. - Bunbury has been blah and Rowe was hungry. Credit to Heaps for that move. - Lets show some love for Rowe - he had a helluvagood game. - How about that Giovinco simulation drawing yellow on Jose? Think MLS will rescind that card? Nah, didn't think so. Still, should draw a slap on the wrist for Gio - going down for a 10-count because JoGo brushed his neck? Wow. - JoGo seems to have a rep with the refs. Not very justified IMO. He's not a dirty player and most of the time is very respectful of the refs. He certainly won the mental contest with Jozy. - It's gonna be quite the war next month in Toronto - memories will still be fresh. - I was hoping to see Woodbury, but it was a very steady, composed performance by Hall. - I breathed a big sigh of relief when Gio subbed out. Vanney threw in the towel pretty early. - Overall, just fantastic to have Jones back. He was really, really, ... REALLY missed.
Jones seemed to make that long diagonal to the sideline over and over again, almost like he was making the point, we need to stretch Toronto wider. It almost seemed like more of a coaching action than an attacking one. As soon as Jones steeped on the field, Toronto played scared, which was refreshing to see. Davies is now the in form striker that should get pulled into the USMNT for the playoff against Mexico. Its amazing to watch this guy who is a shadow of his former self physically, just out-work and out-think the opposition. Agudelo showed flashes of his talent, but he's still not living up to the hype. Overall, I wasn't too impressed by the Revs. They were playing against a really poor 10 man team at home, and still weren't able to shut it down defensively. The Revs looked great because they had almost infinite time and space, but against a full strength playoff team I'm not sure how'll they'd do.
When Heaps pulled Lee early, our chances of attacking on the ground were greatly reduced. I think it was a wise move though... no reason to risk injury. When Jones finally got in, his long passes were everything everybody has already said they were. 60 yard passes cross field, right on the button. And while I generally don't like Rowe... he didnt screw anything up this time. On the initial call, I didnt see the kick as we were on the opposite side of the field, but I thought JoGo had managed his second yellow. He was very much on the edge of that by playing kind of rough. Mugging them might be a little more accurate. Finally, Davies totally outplayed Lazy Antiscore. He really deserves another NAT shot though I think JK likes bigger forwards. Even if the are a big pile of crap
I get the wanting to analyze how them team did before the sky collapsed on TFC, but 3 points is three points. At the end of the year, they just add them up. There's nothing about who was out when you played them, who was out for you, how far you had to fly or how many games you'd played in how many weeks.
Davies deserves a NAT call because he's been scoring goals fairly consistently since dating back to last year's playoffs, and because it would make a good story. I'm just not sure that it should be for the Confed playoff. A friendly camp would do.
Jones on the field was like having a very competent manager who also can play soccer with a quarterback's vision commanding the center. There is quite a bit of nice talent on the Revs, but it is quite young and almost bereft of any natural leader....except for Jones.
What if 3 points was not always 3 points - there were nuances based on context? Not to derail the thread, but the data nerd in me says that would be pretty cool. Kind of like a college football BCS algorithm but adaptable to factor in NT callups, injuries, miles traveled within the last week leading to the game (to give kudos to some CCL teams that play away in Honduras then win away across the country the other direction from their home field 3 days later). Instead of all 3 points maybe it's 2.576381491 if you beat an undermanned TFC at home and if you win away, after CCL travel, on the opposite coast you get 3.14 points (couldn't resist). On the downside, while they'd perhaps have gotten points for not having JJ, without many NTers called away for int'l duty compared to other clubs, the revs would get screwed in that system. Plus, they usually hit teams that played midweek. Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled TFC post game conversation.
In terms of a result, the Revs got maximum points, agreed. However, if we want to find out how good this team is, we can't use this game as a measuring stick.
If you looked at the context of wins/losses as described above (similar to college football or basketball) I think it would be pretty telling to show that the Revs just aren't competitive with the better teams in the league.
This is what irks me about Heaps. He has 2 strikers and he refuses to change his system. IMO a coach who doesn't position his players where he can get the most out of them is not a very good coach.
I agree that a red card sort of throws everything out the window as far as judging the quality of a side. On the injury/callup side of the equation, however, every game has nuances of advantage/disadvantage for each side, which should hopefully balance out over the course of the season. One game is rarely valuable as a measuring stick (OK, the Joe Public game) during the regular season.
Another good performance at home against a pretty good team (even though they were undermanned). I thought we played well against Toronto at home in that draw back in May as well, when they at least started their big 3 DPs (Altidore of course left that game with an injury). An interesting trend about the Revs that I feel like gets somewhat lost in the shuffle is how different this team plays at home vs. on the road, especially defensively. A lot of the focus is on how different they are with Jones in the lineup vs without Jones, which is absolutely true. But even taking Jones out of the equation the Revs are a pretty good team at Gillette and a horrible team everywhere else. Home record: 6-1-5, 19 GF, 9 GA (+10 GD) Road record: 2-8-2, 13 GF, 27 GA (-14 GD) The Revs give up 3 times as many goals on the road than they do at home! That is insane. I don't know if it's a mentality thing, or a coaching thing, or just a coincidence. And it's not like they've played all cupcakes at home either: DC, Vancouver, NYRB, Toronto x2, LA, Columbus. And in most of those games against the tougher competition at home, they played pretty well. Contrast that with some of the road disasters they've had at NYRB, Dallas, SKC, Seattle, Portland, NYC... As some people on here have mentioned, the leadership of Jermaine Jones seems to really make a big difference for this team. He only played in one of those disastrous road losses I mentioned above (and he was a CB in that game). Hopefully having him back at full strength can help the team carry over some of their solid play at Gillette to the road.
Is it really that simple though? It's not like we're the only team in the league that plays on turf. Seattle, Portland, Vancouver, Orlando all do (even Montreal was playing on turf in the CCL knockout rounds at Olympic Stadium). Records at home: Portland: 6-1-4, +9 GD Seattle: 7-4-1, +4 GD Vancouver: 5-4-1, +3 GD Orlando: 4-5-3, +2 GD Granted, the more I look into home and away splits across the league it looks like just about everyone in the league is pedestrian to bad on the road and decent to unbeatable at home. Only 3 teams have won more than 3 games on the road in the whole league: Vancouver (7-4-2), RBNY (4-4-3), and TFC (4-6-3). Even the Galaxy just picked up their first road win of the season at Colorado after an 0-6-5 start.