Revolution at Real Salt Lake, 5.5.12

Bill Parcells once famously said, “You are what your record says you are.” The statement has the ring of truth, and on at least one level it’s inarguable: you’re not going to make the playoffs if your record isn’t good enough. Looked at another way, it’s b.s. Sometimes a good team suffers bad breaks and its record doesn’t reflect its quality. Sometimes a bad team goes on a lucky run, like a newcomer at a craps table, and its record doesn’t reflect its deficiencies.

I think back on some Washington Redskins teams over the years whenever I come across Parcells’s reductive dictum. Joe Gibbs’s first Redskins team started 0-5, but fans just knew the team was tough, that other teams didn’t want to play them, that things would come around eventually. That team ultimately finished 8-8, which is a mediocre final record. But we all knew that was no mediocre team. And the next year, the Skins won their first Super Bowl.

 By contrast, Norv Turner’s Redskins teams sometimes shot out of the gates and won a string of games early in the season. But those of us who actually watched every game just knew those teams were soft, that they’d eventually fold. The 1996 Skins under Turner, for example, started 7-1. In week eight, by Parcells’s logic of “You are what your record says you are,” that team was up there with the ’78 Steelers. Which was, even at the time, quite obviously not the case to anyone paying attention. Those ’96 Skins finished 9-7 and out of the playoffs.

This same kind of logic can apply to individual games. Sometimes teams get lucky and win or tie when they should lose. Last year, for example, New England went to Salt Lake and got thoroughly dominated by an undermanned RSL side, yet the Revolution still managed to come away with a 3-3 result and go home with a point. Yesterday, by contrast, the Revolution went to Salt Lake and lost 2-1. However, the Revolution played well and almost certainly should have come out of the game with a tie.

Salt Lake can credit their win to a red-hot Alvaro Saborio, who scored both of their goals, and to the consistently excellent Nick Rimando, who made two wonderfully quick reaction-saves within a minute of each other, first to deny a Fernando Cardenas shot reminiscent of the one that led to a goal against Colorado a few days ago, then to deny a powerful Blake Brettshneider header off the ensuing corner kick. I should add here that Rimando’s counterpart on the Revs, Matt Reis, had some stunning saves himself, and it’s remarkable that Saborio didn’t score a hat trick. The fearless Reis took one point-blank shot from Saborio off the face.

By far the most frustrating moment of this game for New England fans came about ten minutes into the second half. A. J. Soares was called for a foul about twenty-five yards from goal for making contact with Fabian Espindola, who, replays showed, sold the non-foul to the ref and then unaccountably paid the ref back by giving him a harangue during the free-kick set-up. The kick was eventually played to the back post and found Saborio, who’d lost his marker (John Lozano, in for Stephen McCarthy) by pushing him away from the goal as the ball was kicked. The ball skimmed inches from Shalrie Joseph’s dreadlocks before finding Saborio.

Along with some memorable saves, the game also feature two straight red cards, one (on Salt Lake’s Will Johnson) deserved, one (on Cardenas) not. Brettschneider scored a quality goal early, taking a Joseph pass, driving to the end-line before cutting the ball back to his right foot and curling a shot into the side netting of the far post. Soares had another good game, unfortunately cut short by a clearly unintentional poke in the eye by Saborio around the 80^th minute. Due to his ejection and the fact that he came on as a sub, Cardenas played only about twenty minutes, but I thought he had another very good game, including that shot I mentioned earlier that so easily could have found the back of the net. Clyde Simms continues his solid, unspectacular play in the defensive midfield, and Kevin Alston was his usual solid self on defense.

There were some negatives to this game for New England that went beyond the final score. Kelyn Rowe had his second unmemorable match (he came off for Cardenas in the 59^th minute), Lazono didn’t impress, Benny Feilhaber gave away too many balls trying to force passes into tight spaces, and Alston punctuated a good run up the right sideline with a poor cross, squandering a promising opportunity.

But the Revs did come on late and gave a very good Salt Lake team playing at home all they could handle. And this was, we should remember, the third game in eight days for New England. So while New England’s record now stands at a poor 3-6, I think that, pace Bill Parcells, they are actually better than that. Newcomers Saer Sene, Lee Nguyen, Cardenas, Brettschneider, Simms, and Rowe have all showed promise this year, as have New England’s veteran starters. If they all stay healthy, this revamped team should improve with more time playing together, and might even make a run at the playoffs this fall.