Revs ready for the restart
Face Montreal in MLS is Back Tournament opener on July 9
Major League Soccer will adopt a World Cup-style group format with its MLS is Back Tournament scheduled to begin July 8.
The tournament was broken down into six groups and will be played at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida.
The Revolution were drawn into Group C and will face fellow Eastern Conference rivals Toronto FC, D.C. United and the Montreal Impact.
The Revolution open with a primetime (8 p.m.) match with Montreal on July 9. The Revs play D.C. United in another primetime match (8 p.m.) on July 16 and close out the round robin with a 9 a.m. wakeup call against Toronto on July 21.
There will be 56 total matches with a minimum of three and a maximum of seven per team. The Revolution were 0-1-1 when MLS closed shop on March 12 in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic.
“Well believe me, this isn’t World Cup,” said Revolution head coach and sporting director Bruce Arena. “It’s entirely different with the pandemic and the conditions the teams are playing under.
“But we do understand that it’s group play with three games and hopefully we play well enough to advance to the Group of 16. It’s important, it’s not preseason. It’s for real and we have a lot of work to do. We’ll see and we are climbing a bit of a mountain so far.”
The Revolution will depart Foxboro on Thursday morning with five things to watch for when the play resumes.
The boss
Arena inherited a floundering team (2-8-2) team in May of 2019. The Revs’ turnaround included an 11-game unbeaten run and closed out 8-3-8 to make the playoffs. Arena added Gustavo Bou midseason and used the offseason realigning his coaching and support staff. His roster additions included Adam Buksa, Henry Kessler, Alexander Buttner, Seth Sinovic, Kelyn Rowe, Damian Rivera and keeper Jeff Caldwell. The tournament will provide an early indicator of Arena’s team-building skills.
Who to start
Arena had a full training camp and five preseason games to assemble his 11 starters. When the pandemic hit, the players scattered and were left to their own devices for skill and conditioning maintenance. The Montreal Impact will likely see keeper Matt Turner behind Buttner, Bou, Buksa, Antonio Mlinar Delamea, Andrew Farrell,
Brandon Bye, Wilfried Zahibo, Diego Fagundez, Carles Gill and Cristian Penilla.
From the bench
The Back to the Tournament plan allows for five substitutions and an expanded roster of 23 players. Those game alterations were implemented to offset the long layoff and the tropical Florida climate. Arena will likely draw from a pool of Rowe, Scott Caldwell, Teal Bunbury, Tajon Buchanan, Michael Mancienne, Justin Rennicks, DeJuan Jones and Damian Rivera when it is time for a new look on the pitch.
First-year guys
The newcomers expected to have the biggest impact are Kessler, Buksa and Buttner. Kessler was the Revolution’s first-round pick out of Virginia in 2020 and is expected to solidify the backend flanked by Farrell. Buksa is an accomplished import at forward and gained international experience being called into camp with the Polish National Team. Buttner is a Dutch defender who racked up 20,000 minutes over 12 professional seasons on top flight teams across Europe.
Something to prove
The Revolution’s roster is loaded with experienced MLS veterans with long lists of accomplishments making the difficult transition from starter to substitute. The list includes Bunbury, Scott Caldwell, Zahibo and Rowe. Bunbury is in his 11th season, seventh with the Revs, and has appeared in 271 MLS games. Caldwell is a Revolution home-grown player from Braintree with 159 starts.