FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – As the New England Revolution prepares to begin its postseason campaign in the Eastern Conference Semifinals for a second straight year, there’s one critical difference between the 2014 side and the group which fell to Sporting Kansas City in 2013.
They’ve been here before.
The Revolution team which battled Sporting KC at this stage last season was largely inexperienced; seven of the players who started the first leg of that series had never appeared in a playoff match. Similarly, Jay Heaps was navigating the MLS Cup Playoffs for the first time as a head coach.
That experience – painful as it was – will now serve the Revolution well heading into this year’s showdown with the Columbus Crew, set to begin Saturday afternoon at Crew Stadium.
“We learned a lot from last year and the team’s very similar to last year,” said Kevin Alston. “We have more players who’ve gotten that playoff experience and I think that will really help us be comfortable when the time comes to play.”
Inexperienced as they were, last year’s young Revolution squad had Sporting KC on the ropes in the late stages of the two-game, aggregate-goal series. Only a 79th-minute goal from Seth Sinovic sent the series to extra time, where SKC eventually triumphed just minutes before a potential penalty shootout.
Sporting KC, of course, went on to win MLS Cup.
“We were able to hang in there with Kansas City last year. We were that close – maybe a couple minutes away and it could’ve been the other way around,” said Lee Nguyen, an MVP frontrunner this season after notching 18 goals and five assists. “Then they ended up going all the way to win MLS Cup.
“That’s confidence going into this playoffs, knowing that we have the quality now. With a little bit more depth (this year), we can take it all the way if we want to.”
Experience and added depth aren’t the only differences between 2013 and 2014, either. Heaps believes the Revs have improved in one other significant area ahead of a potentially taxing postseason run.
“I think there’s a good balance of a little bit more toughness than we had last year,” Heaps said. “Last year we were resilient – I think we showed that when we had to go on the run to get into the playoffs.
“This year I think we have a little bit of toughness. When we added Jermaine (Jones), everyone around him and around Jose (Goncalves), we’ve just gotten a little bit stronger [physically] and mentally.”
There are, of course, significant differences between this year’s playoff showdown with Columbus and last year’s meeting with Sporting KC. No longer an underdog, the Revs head into their series with the Crew as the higher seed and will have the advantage of hosting the second leg at Gillette Stadium.
In that sense expectations have increased, but after closing the season on a red-hot run (nine wins in the final 11 games), the Revs have every belief that they’ll meet each challenge placed before them.
“We feel that we’re still not playing at our best yet, which gives us the confidence to know that we can win the Cup,” said Charlie Davies. “Because with the performances that we’ve had, as well as we’ve done, we can do better.
“With all that being said, hard work, focus and 100 percent commitment needs to be there. I think that we’ve just got to take it game by game and we know anything’s possible. We’ll see what the future holds for us.”
