The Revs may have left the MLS Is Back tournament earlier than anticipated, but there were three definitive bright spots that shone down on the ESPN Wide World Of Sports Complex. Those bright spots also go by the names of Carles Gil, Adam Buksa, and Gustavo Bou: Boston’s newest Big Three.
All three of New England’s designated players played an immediate role in the relative success that the Revolution had in this tournament. Bou and Buksa both scored key goals, and Gil broke down teams midfields and was able to play through the lines almost seamlessly, until his nagging foot injury came back to sideline him.
We learned several things about the New England Revolution during their time in Orlando. The first of those being, the same issues that plagued them at the start of the season were ever present in this tournament: scoring when it matters. Either the Revs have some weird superstition about scoring more than one goal in a game (or scoring when they’re down), or I just can’t figure it out. Creating scoring chances was not an issue for New England. In fact, Carles Gil lead the league in chances created during the group stage of the tournament. The issue is finishing, which boggles my mind still. We know Gustavo Bou and Adam Buksa are more than capable of putting the ball in the net in more ways than we can count. We know that Teal Bunbury has been scoring goals when it matters his entire career. We know that players like Tajon Buchanan and Cristian Penilla have blistering pace and are capable of quality service. So what’s the issue? Why aren’t the Revs one of the more dominant teams in Major League Soccer?
To me, the issue (at least in this tournament) came down to predictability. At this point, teams realize that a player like Gustavo Bou doesn’t have a solidified role. He tends to roam free, will shoot from anywhere, and likely won’t track back to defend. So in the instance of a counter attack, the Revs will be down a man defensively. Secondly, the idea of dribbling down the channel and serving a ball in from the corner is nothing new, but it seemed like that was all Bruce Arena was comfortable having them do (maybe he knew something we didn’t, I still have faith in Bruce). And third, New England, for whatever reason, cannot defend set pieces consistently. A long throw, corner kicks, free kicks from 40 yards out… it just appears to create chaos in the box. Matt Turner is proving to be one of the elite goalkeepers in Major League Soccer, but there’s a limit to how many times he can bail out this team.
My bottom line is, the Revs need to figure out a way to put more balls in the net, or they’re going to continue to have a difficult time in a league that is becoming more and more competitive every season.

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