4 takeaways as the Revolution beat Miami 3-1
The Revolution earned their first victory in over a month on Saturday night when they topped Inter Miami CF 3-1.
The win puts New England at 8-3-6 at the halfway mark of the season and extends its undefeated streak at home to nine games.
The contest, which was also Pride Night for the Revolution, drew a massive crowd of 36,235 fans.
Here are a few takeaways from the fixture:
A perfect time for revenge on Miami.
New England caught Miami during one of the biggest weeks in the club’s history, if not the biggest.
Earlier in the week it was announced that the Florida squad would be bringing in Lionel Messi after his contract with PSG expires on June 30.
While the news was great for the club’s social media interest, it didn’t do anything to boost a squad that sits last in the Eastern Conference.
Miami entered the game against New England on a five-game losing streak with its last victory being against the Revs.
During that stretch, the Herons fired their manager Phil Neville and named Javier Morales interim in his place.
What helped the Revolution even more was that one of Miami’s best defenders, Kamal Miller, was suspended for the match due to a red card he recovered on June 3 against D.C. United.
Carles Gil has his best match of the season.
Following a game against NYFC where he failed to create a goal, captain Carles Gil filled up the scoresheet against Miami.
Throughout the opening minutes of the game, Gil was seen tearing all across the midfield, dribbling by defenders, and slotting passes forward.
His first true mark on the game didn’t come from his passing or dribbling though.
At the 27-minute mark, midfielder Matt Polster drew a penalty for the squad and Gil was the one to take it. He proceeded to bury the ball in the bottom right corner for his second penalty goal of the season and the 11th of his career.
After scoring a goal, Gil created a number of chances for his teammates, two of which resulted in the other goals for the Revs.
After the game, Polster, who scored on a corner kick from Gil, talked about what it’s like playing with him after the game.
“The guy is different,” Polster said. “When he’s on the field and on the ball, he sees things that not every player sees. He’s able to break pressure, he’s able to get into the attack, and then even at times he’s very good on the defensive side of things.”
Polster makes up for early turnovers.
Polster ran Revs fans through the full spectrum of emotions on Saturday night.
The midfielder was far from perfect. On multiple occasions he gave the ball away on his own side of midfield, leading to solid chances on net for Miami.
Revolution head coach Bruce Arena was quite frank about Polster’s start, saying, “His first 15-20 minutes weren’t good.”
As the game moved along, however, Polster began to change the narrative of his night. His movement into the box created the Gil penalty kick and seven minutes later, he knocked home New England’s second goal of the game.
While he admitted that his role in the set piece was to set a screen for teammate Dave Romney, when the ball found Polster he headed it in.
Following his first goal of the season, the midfielder tucked the ball away under his jersey, a celebration he said was an homage to some big personal news.
Polster said that his wife is expecting the family’s second child in about two months and wanted to make sure he let people know about it if he scored.
“My wife was really upset when I didn’t do it the first time and she’s like, ‘How could you forget?’” Polster said. “This time I tried to remember and I did.”
Throughout the game, Polster, a player who doesn’t often get into attacking positions, found himself rotating up from his holding midfielder spot.
After the contest, he said that his attacking movement is something he’s tried to expand upon in recent seasons.
“I’ve definitely tried to improve at getting forward more often and the last couple years I’ve been doing that a lot more,” Polster said. “It’s something that I’ve tried to add to my game and Carles can obviously pick a pass like that so I’m definitely going to risk it a couple more times per game.”
Revolution loosened their grip in the second half.
While New England lit up the scoresheet in the first 50 minutes with three goals, the end of its match left much to be desired.
“That was not pretty,” Arena said. “The third goal was big but I think our guys after that played like the game was over.”
The final 20 minutes of play were particularly troublesome for the Revolution, allowing four shots on goal in the period after giving up just two in the first 70.
Romney, who slotted in as the team’s most central defender in their relatively new 3-5-2 formation, shared his disappointment with how his squad performed late in the game.
“The way we finished the game was definitely not good enough,” Romney said. “I think we didn’t have enough pressure on the ball towards the end of the game, we were kind of sitting too deep, and we gave them too much freedom to pick out passes and create dangerous chances against us.”
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