Revolution v. Sporting KC, 8.4.12: Why Should We Support the Revolution?

There are many reasons to follow a sports team. Most kids grow up supporting their local teams because their parents and friends support those teams and because the teams appear on local TV and in local venues. And since most of us value loyalty, we tend to keep following those teams of our youth, even if we move away from our hometowns. We may also continue supporting those teams because our allegiances help us (and others) to define who we are. Nick Hornby is excellent on this subject in his memoir Fever Pitch, which should be required reading for anyone who’s ever passionately followed a particular club.

There are other reasons besides loyalty and proximity to pull for a sports team. I, like many others, am a fan of FC Barcelona’s not because I’m from Barcelona, but because the current team plays attractive soccer and because it has such great and likeable players. That last point has become increasingly important to me. Real Madrid is, like Barca, a great team comprised of great players. But for whatever combination of subjective reasons, I find Ronaldo, Pepe, and Marcello not nearly as likeable as Messi, Iniesta, and Xavi. Barcelona players are not only great athletes, they’re also respectful of each other. Ask yourself how many times you’ve seen Messi or Iniesta or Xavi bitch at one of his teammates for not providing proper service or for a poorly timed run or whatever. Clearly, Barca’s culture dissuades players from openly griping at each other on the field, and I like that.

Which brings me back (or down) to the subject of the New England Revolution. Why, I asked myself on Saturday during their 1-0 home loss to Sporting Kansas City, am I even supporting this team? There are so many reasons not to support them, beginning with their poor record of late and the team’s characterless and ill-attended stadium (built for an NFL team). Despite all that and more, the team has for me remained likeable in recent years largely because of its former captain, Shalrie Joseph. On an MLS field, Joseph looks like a man among boys, a pro among amateurs. I can’t stand whiners and egotists and guys who bitch at their teammates when things aren’t going their way. Joseph is an example of a pro athlete that eschews that in favor of quietly producing and leading by example.

Instead of Joseph’s stoic professionalism, the game against Kansas City was in my mind defined by the petulant attitude and largely ineffectual play of new Revolution striker Dimitry Imbongo. To his credit, Imbongo drew a number of fouls during the game, but to his discredit he had two great chances to score—in the 36^th minute off a pass from Benny Feilhaber and in the 49^th off a cross from Chris Tierney—and his finishes (especially the first) were notably poor. After the second miss—a close-range header that he put over the bar—he unaccountably wheeled around and began chewing out Fernando Cardenas, presumably for passing the ball to Tierney instead of directly to him (Imbongo). If that’s the kind of player coach Jay Heaps wants in favor of players like Joseph, then fans like me will simply stop watching the Revolution. If our sports allegiances do in part define who we are, I want no part of following players who engage in nonsensical and unprofessional tirades.

Speaking of Heaps, I didn’t much care for how he and the rest of New England management explained, or explained away, the Joseph trade. Here’s Heaps on the trade: “It's not a decision we took lightly. It's not a decision we came to on a whim. There was a lot of organizational thought process behind it.” And here’s Revs’ GM Michael Burns: “Trading Shalrie was a not a decision we made easily.” To which I feel like responding, “So you guys didn’t dream this up over a game of beer pong?” Seriously, how patronizing is it to the fans and to Joseph to say that the decision to trade the team’s highest-paid player took some consideration? Such statements are not only meaningless, they’re distastefully self-congratulatory. They imply that the trade was “hard” not on Joseph or the fans, but on Heaps and Burns themselves, the poor guys. Managers in any type of organization should make a point never to refer to layoffs or firings or trades as the result of “tough decisions.” Unless of course they’re firing themselves.