For the first time in nine years, the MLS playoffs will not be\u00a0paying a visit to New England.<\/p>\n
As a result of\u00a0their 2-2 draw to Columbus Saturday night, the Revolution bid their playoff dreams adieu with four matches remaining on the regular season schedule.<\/p>\n
The official word from MLS, which arrived yesterday, simply confirms what many of us have known since late-Spring: this club is hardly worthy of the chance to contend for a title.<\/p>\n
From top to bottom, this year’s club has not only underperformed, but also found themselves\u00a0outclassed, outgunned, and generally\u00a0outplayed more often than not. Twenty-ten has not been kind to the Local XI.<\/p>\n
In fact, for a team that has a lengthy\u00a0checklist of troubles, it’s surprising that, with only four\u00a0matches remaining on the regular season schedule, it even took this long to get the guillotine.<\/p>\n
The club’s demise, of course, is attributable to any one (or combination thereof) of the following: a porous defense, an unimaginative midfield, an anemic\u00a0attack, an incomplete roster, a slew of questionable signings, and, oh yeah, a\u00a0hazardly assembled\u00a0set of players.<\/p>\n
Yes, all of these issues contributed to the descent of this\u00a0once-proud franchise. Sure, going to four MLS Cups in six years without a ring certainly stung during that impressive run between 2002-07. But at least\u00a0the club\u00a0was contending, which is the exact of opposite of what\u00a0they did this season.<\/p>\n
In retrospect, it was inevitable that the turnover this club experienced – the losses of Steve Ralston, Jay Heaps, Clint Dempsey, Andy Dorman, Michael Parkhurst, not to mention the unlikely return of Taylor Twellman – would eventually catch up with them. And it did in a hurry this year.<\/p>\n
It was painfully evident at many junctures: the drubbings received from Real Salt Lake (0-5), Seattle (0-3), Chivas (0-4), and Colorado (0-3).\u00a0Getting shutout in astounding\u00a011 league matches. The concession of late goals. Khano Smith on the wing (or on the pitch, for that matter).<\/p>\n
Perhaps\u00a02010 will serve as\u00a0the wakeup call that the front office, which has received the scorn of supporters all season, has been in dire need of since the club’s obvious regression since the\u00a0start of the 2008 season.<\/p>\n
After successive seasons of failed\u00a0draft picks (quick – name a single player from the 2008 class),\u00a0bloated\u00a0contracts to inactive players (Twellman and\u00a0Edgaras Jankauskas),\u00a0and\u00a0short-changing\u00a0homegrown talent\u00a0(Parkhurst, Jeff Larentowicz, Andy Dorman, and Pat Noonan),\u00a0management would be hard pressed\u00a0to\u00a0simply dismiss the\u00a0self-inflicted wounds it has sustained\u00a0since their last MLS Cup run.<\/p>\n
Suffice to say, there\u00a0have been numerous\u00a0factors which have contributed to to the club’s deteriorating health.\u00a0Fortunately, the front office will have additional time to address the symptoms thanks to an early-arriving offseason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Monday, Major League Soccer, with its ever-baffling playoff formula, confirmed that New England has been eliminated from playoff contention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":754,"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":[24,9],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/nicol.jpg?fit=500%2C396&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1073"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1073"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1086,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1073\/revisions\/1086"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}