Could be a significant couple of days coming up for a couple of rumored Revs targets. 1. According to reports, Colombian forward Michael Rangel will have his future decided on Wednesday. Rangel is currently on loan from Atletico Junior to Atletico Bucaramanga - a move both the player and the club would apparently like to see made permanent. However, Junior apparently want to sell him to one of two overseas bidders, one of which is apparently New England. Reports have the price tag in the range of $1.2 million, so he'd apparently be a Designated Player. 2. The agent for Uruguyan left back Alfonso Espino has told the South American media that he's working on a new deal for the 26-year old. Espino is apparently out of contract at the end of the year, and has made comments in the past about how it might be time to try his hand elsewhere. He hasn't ruled out a return to Nacional, but the club is apparently experiencing financial issues. Espino's agent was in Foxboro last month.
Also, Cincinnati's been in MLS for about five minutes, and they already have two defenders I like better than anyone on Blooter's roster.
Maybe if we just collect enough solid South American players in their prime, they can sort of coach themselves and collectively outweigh Friedel's tired Championship tactics that got found out mid-season and never recovered. Friedel's narrative about 5 minutes of the Galaxy game tipping the season into the abyss is hilarious--no, Brad, you got SOLVED and couldn't adjust. I really wish we had Savarese right about now....
Savarese is definitely a more pragmatic coach, and with him in charge I dont know how many of the in season moves we see. Too many moving parts to make an exact comparisson, but the revs roater today is definitely less talented than portland's
But do they miss it in the same ugly fashion, summer swoon and all? I think they are more of a Philly under Savarese, put together a later season run then crash out first round.
The "summer swoon" has bitten enough different coaches to indicate to me that there's something 'organic' there. Okay, now Friedel has experienced it first-hand. Let's see if he can solve it (or at least temper it).
I said this in another post somewhere, but one of the things someone commented on about Savarese was that he was really good at noticing subtle things that were going on, and making adjustments mid-game, whether with a sub or having the guys already on the field doing things differently. One of Friedel's biggest weaknesses was adjusting when other teams figured out how to counter the high-pressure trap that was working in the early part of the season. Parallel universe to be sure, but if that's true about Gio, I think he could have come up with a Plan B that worked better than the mid-season train wreck we saw here.
The “summer swoon” problem, simply, seems to be that the Revs never have the talent nor the coaching to present more than 1 system for other teams to figure out. Usually, by summer, they’ve figured it out. Further, the REV coaching is unable to equally figure out and take advantage of the opposing system(s). In short, root cause: Rev lack of talent and weak coaching. Brad could help “solve” the coaching side of the problem by quitting. But he’d be replaced by an equally inexperienced and unimaginative successor.
If we're going to fault Friedel for not adjusting during The Annual Mid-season Winless Streak (tm), then we also have to credit him for the start of the season when I thought his emphasis on fitness earned us points. Savarese's Timbers got off to a slow start, right?
The #NERevs passed in this afternoon's Waiver Draft.Next up: Stage 1 of the Re-Entry Draft on Friday (3 p.m. ET).— Jeff Lemieux (@jeff_lemieux) December 12, 2018
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: there are too many drafts in MLS, most of them marginal. If a player is cut loose by his club, let him sign with whoever offers him the best deal.
Only 4 picks were made in the waiver draft. - NYRB traded their 2nd round super draft pick to get the #1 spot and take Marcus Epps - The Fire made 2 picks, grabbing Christian Martinez and then Marco Ureña - LAFC took Ricky Lopez Espin, the 33rd pick in last years superdraft Of all of them I dont think the Revs missed out on anyone, and they didnt add more bad players on bad contracts (yet)
From today’s Globe: Friedel believes the Revolution will contend for a playoff spot. “Without giving away a lot of secrets, I think people will be pretty impressed with what we’re doing in the offseason,” Friedel said. “I’ve said many times in press conferences we should’ve won a lot more games. “We’re not far away at all. But we also do need to add a couple pieces to the puzzle. With every season, especially one where you don’t make the playoffs, there are going to be changes. Sometimes it’s personnel and sometimes mentality, and some other subtle things. With us it’s a little bit of everything.” “Contend for a playoff spot”. The lack of ambition never fails to amaze me. https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/...d-high-note/gcwrVYMaOxcFnJmEu3P1HL/story.html
He also was sure to include a Kraft boot-licking comment about how Bobby has invested heavily into MLS.
It's been noted here many times, including by me. They're happy to just make the playoffs, it's therefore a successful season.
Except that under Nicol, they had talent and coaching and still had problems with it. Certainly both of those things are factors, but I think there's something else involving climate/training/the way we prepare for and condition during the season. And, of course, quality DEPTH that is game-conditioned to be ready to step in!
Agreed - the problems will perpetuate until the Krafts change their philosophy of OTJ coach training by hiring first year managers. Someone may point to Nicol being a successful first time coach but I'd suggest his tactics and style were perfectly suited for that era of MLS. Scrappers and lunch pail guys rather than creative players. Given the evolution of the league over the past decade I strongly doubt he would be anywhere near as successful now. Until the owners hire better managers the revs will never win anything more substantial than possibly a USOC.
Lots of activity around the league... none by the Rev's. I wonder if BF is starting to get the picture on how the Revs work? There is no real help coming.... College draft may bring in a body or two.... probably none that will help.... but little, if any other help from anywhere else is comng. So all that's left is to TALK about how we're close, about how well make the playoffs next year blah, blah, blah.... Sorry, I'm not going for the football again this year Charlie Brown. As of right now, we're worse than we were last year and I have zero faith that Burns will do a damn thing about it. Certainly not like other teams are doing right NOW
Climate is a non-starter, since several other teams have the same (or worse) climate that we have. In the Nicol years he was hamstrung by lack of depth. He didn't have a lot of confidence in the bottom of the roster, and the best (worst) example is the year where only 14 players had more than 200 minutes all year, and everyone wondered why they were exhausted by the time MLS Cup came around.
As far as the Revs' history of hiring head coaches go, it is pretty astonishing when you think about it. Let's travel back in the Wayback Machine with Mr. Peabody and have a look... The first coach was Frank Stapleton, who was a pretty good player--leading scorer for Ireland in his day, played mostly with Arsenal, also with Man U and a few other clubs. He had never coached a pro team before, and was heading to Boston on a flight from Ireland, looking to do some youth camps on the Cape. He was on the same plane as then-GM Brian O'Donovan, who was more of a business manager than what we tend to think of as a GM. He was not a "soccer guy," despite having an accent. The Revs had been rumored to considering Ossie Ardilles at the time, but that was probably nothing more than a name-dropping rumor. They had Ron McEachan, who was Jim St. Andre's college coach at Vermont, and if Stapo hadn't' been hired, he probably would have been the head coach. Strange thing is, they hired the assistant first, instead of letting the head man bring in his own guys. He didn't work out, so the next year they poached Thomas Rongen from Tampa. They were a league-owned team and Rongen was making only $75k. After winning Coach of the Year honors, he asked for a raise. When the League said no, Kraft jumped in and signed him for double that. It seemed like a great move at the time, and the Revs were better. But he wanted to leave the team mid-season 1998 to be an "assistant" to Steve Sampson at the World Cup. The Krafts, showing their unyielding commitment to excellence with their sawker team, said, "sure, go ahead and have a nice time in Paree." The team tanked and he was replaced by Walter Zenga as player-coach. He knew the game inside and out, but had never coached before. When he was fired after not making the 1999 playoffs, they hired Fernando Clavijo, who was a Metros assistant coach. At least he was a coach with a pro team, although not the head man. After a crappy 2001 playoff-less season (but an Open Cup final), they brought in Steve Nicol as his assistant, when the A-League Boston Bulldogs folded. Even Stevie Wonder could see that he was the next coach waiting in the wings, should Clavijo get off to a bad start. And by May, that was exactly what happened. Nicol's successor was Jay Heaps, whose post-playing day job was some kind of financial guy at Fidelity, and moonlighted in the broadcast booth. He went to Dook, and coach K gave him a reference, so that was all the qualifications the Krafts needed. Heaps' successor was Brad Friedel, who had coached various yute teams, but never on the pro level. So there you have it. No relevant prior experience needed to coach the Revs! By comparison, that bastion of excellence in the Rocky Mountains at least hired a guy was in charge of an international side who once finished ahead of Italy and won crucial World Cup qualifiers against powerhouses like Guam, Vanuatu, and Fiji!