{"id":16059,"date":"2012-10-13T07:00:11","date_gmt":"2012-10-13T11:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=16059"},"modified":"2012-10-21T20:33:52","modified_gmt":"2012-10-22T00:33:52","slug":"a-season-to-remember","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=16059","title":{"rendered":"A Season to Remember: 2002 New England Revolution Revisited"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

The 2002 Revolution squad march out for their first home game at cmgi Field, which would be re-named Gillette Stadium before the end of the season. (Photo by Art Donahue\/artdonahue.com)<\/p><\/div>\n

Funny how an idea can quickly take on a life of its own.<\/p>\n

A little over\u00a0a month\u00a0ago, Sean Donahue and I were bantering about former Revolution players as we fired up the laptops, flipped through game notes and set up shop\u00a0to cover the\u00a0current crop, who were getting set to face Chivas USA at Gillette Stadium.<\/p>\n

The first player that came up, of course, was the man of the hour: Shalrie Joseph, the longtime Revolution captain who’d returned to Foxboro sporting the red and white stripes. It was an odd sight,\u00a0for sure.<\/p>\n

Somehow, the conversation\u00a0morphed into a\u00a0list of players who once called Foxboro their home. There was Carlos Llamosa, who also happened to be on the Rojiblancos<\/em> bench that night, serving as assistant coach.<\/p>\n

From Llamosa, we moved onto Steve Ralston. Brian Kamler. Joe-Max Moore. Even the Immortal Chris Brown (not to be confused with the that<\/em> Chris Brown).<\/p>\n

Another Brown immediately\u00a0followed: Adin Brown, whose 2002 playoff heroics delivered the New England Revolution to the doorstep of\u00a0a championship. Not bad for a guy who started that season as the backup. And what a season that was. 2002.<\/p>\n

Something compelled me to do the mental math. It had been 10 years since that memorable season.<\/p>\n

“You know what would be awesome?,” I asked.\u00a0“Catching up with some of those players and doing a series about it. Like a commemoration of that season.”<\/p>\n

Sean agreed. We had to do it. Because we knew\u00a0it was more than just\u00a0re-visiting a team\u00a0that\u00a0earned\u00a0a trip to its\u00a0first championship final. Much, much more.<\/p>\n

It was a story about a rookie\u00a0striker who\u00a0kicked off\u00a0his MLS career in stunning fashion. About a coaching change that could’ve sunk the season almost from the start. About a\u00a0local kid who’d someday set franchise records before moving on to become head coach. And who could forget about the amazing run down the stretch?<\/p>\n

From there, e-mails were traded. Calls were made. Text messages were sent.\u00a0Individual stories\u00a0were\u00a0floated. It was an ongoing conversation that Sean, Kevin Koczwara (who\u00a0graciously agreed to join in the fun) and I\u00a0continued until we decided that we were going to do this.\u00a0And there was no turning back.<\/p>\n

So we reached out to the players. We caught up with the people who were there. We flipped through the photos. We replayed the highlights again and again. We looked at the stats.\u00a0We did all this until\u00a0it actually felt like 2002 all over again. At least that’s what I<\/em> tried to do.<\/p>\n

For the\u00a0next six days leading up the 10-year anniversary of the 2002 MLS Cup Final,\u00a0New England Soccer Today<\/em>\u00a0will\u00a0commemorate the accomplishments of\u00a0the 2002 New England Revolution. Each day will feature a new\u00a0story, interview or essay.<\/p>\n

Of course, we all know how the season ended. We know they didn’t triumph in the final. But this isn’t about who\u00a0the best team was ten years ago.<\/p>\n

It’s about overcoming adversity. It’s about an unshakable\u00a0bond between teammates. It’s about forgetting the odds and going for it. It’s about a moment in time that many won’t soon forget.<\/p>\n

So\u00a0get ready for a\u00a0undertaking unlike anything we’ve ever done here at New England Soccer Today<\/em>. What started as a small idea will soon take flight.<\/p>\n

We hope you enjoy it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 2002 New England Revolution were more than just a collection of overachievers. They were band of believers who set the foundation for future success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[155,3],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Revs2.png?fit=477%2C267","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16059"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16059"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16450,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16059\/revisions\/16450"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}