Revolution at Seattle Sounders, 6.26.11

We can learn from success, and God knows we can learn from failure, but can we learn anything from prolonged mediocrity? I asked myself this question during the Revolution’s 2-1 loss in Seattle, the Revolution’s seventh consecutive regular-season game in which they’ve either tied or lost by a one-goal margin. Enduring the kind of bland stretches that New England is going through now probably won’t lead to any epiphanies, but it does tend to make one evaluate a situation.

New England is not a horrible team, just a little below average. They have some good players, even some players—like Shalrie Joseph and Benny Feilhaber—that are probably coveted by other MLS organizations. And whatever one thinks of Steve Nicol’s inelegant style of soccer, he has taken his team to four MLS finals. So the Revs are no joke, and their physically battered opponents certainly know they’ve been in a game when the final whistle blows, but it looks increasingly unlikely that the Revolution will manage to make the playoffs in a format that allows most of the league’s teams into the postseason. The Revolution need to do a better job of maintaining possession, of communicating, of finishing in the final third—all lessons learned long before this game, which simply amounted to another tired reminder of those lessons.

The Revolution went up early in this one, on a corner kick by Feilhaber played on the ground to Sainey Nyassi, left alone at the corner of the penalty box by a sleeping Seattle defense. It wasn’t an especially pretty strike by Nyassi, who hit the ball low and with a lot of English. The shot deflected off a player and past the outstretched keeper, the spinning ball looking like a wounded animal frantically scurrying across the field and into the side netting. It was a play obviously drawn up by the coaches—certainly no candidate for goal of the week—but equally obviously the Revolution will take goals any way they can get them these days.

After that, the Sounders dominated, holding the ball 60% of the time, relying on short triangle passing and patient build-ups. Their first goal came off a pretty free kick by Tyson Wahl in the 34^th minute. The second goal, though, really showed the Sounders at their best. Revs’ right back Kevin Alston had a problem with one of his cleats, I think ripping part of the “upper,” as they used to call the leather part of a shoe in the commercials of my childhood. The Sounders’ players recognized the hobbled Alston and impressively took advantage of him. Seattle started from the back, worked through Mauro Rosales, who passed to Roger Levesque, who in turn passed to Alvaro Fernandez, who ran past the helpless Alston and scored the goal. It’s almost unimaginable that this season’s Revolution team could have recognized an opponent’s weakness so quickly and worked so efficiently to capitalize.

When the Revolution try to maintain possession, I’m often reminded of a novice juggler struggling to keep balls aloft before they inevitably fall to the ground. An example of this kind of shaky soccer occurred in the 60^th minute against Seattle. A few Revolution players made some lunging passes and the sequence ended when Ryan Guy waited too long to make a cross and gave the ball away. At other points, Kenny Mansally made a couple of poorly weighted through passes that went over the end line for goal kicks. Feilhaber and Joseph played two-man keep-away effectively in the 64^th minute until Feilhaber thought that Joseph was going to make a run and Joseph thought that Feilhaber was going to pass it to him where he stood and the ball was turned over. In the 74^th minute, Zak Boggs made a run with the ball near midfield and passed to Rajko Lekic inside the circle. Lekic stood fast to receive the ball and a Sounder streaked in to intercept it, causing Boggs to run at Lekic and very clearly gesture to him that he should have run at the pass to receive it. And so on. 

As usual, the Revolution had their moments, including a great volley by Zack Schilawski in the 85^th minute, shortly after he came on for Ryan Cochrane so New England could go into a three-defender attacking mode. Schilawski slammed the cross bar with that one, and the Revs would likely have gone home with a tie had the ball been two inches lower. Sad to say for the Revolution, soccer justice was served when the shot missed. The Sounders and their loyal fans deserved this one, and New England continues to plod through its middling season.