After 19 day lay-off, New England Revolution return to MLS action tomorrow in Montreal

After 19 day lay-off, New England Revolution return to MLS action tomorrow in Montreal

Idle since a Round of 16 Leagues Cup loss to Liga MX side Queretaro on Aug. 7, the New England Revolution will finally return to action tomorrow, when they face host CF Montréal at Stade Saputo.

Kickoff will be at 7:30 p.m.

Montreal were eliminated in the first round of Leagues Cup play on July 26, after losing 1-0 to D.C. United, and were off until last Saturday, when they went to Toronto and defeated the hosts, 3-2.

For the Revolution the time off was a mixed blessing.

On the one hand, it normally is prejudicial to go such a long time without a game during the season. But in this case, not playing actually helped the team, because the Revs were severely hampered by injuries for the game against Queretaro, missing team captain Carles Gil and forwards Gustavo Bou, and Bobby Wood. The break helped them recover without missing any additional games.

Everyone on the team is eager to return to the pitch

After noting that “it was nice to play in the Leagues Cup,” Revolution Assistant Coach Richie Williams said the team has “had some good training.”

“We’ve had some down time also for the players to recuperate, so we’re ready to go,” he said. “We have a nice week to prepare and get ready for Montréal for Saturday’s game.”

When asked if he was happy to return, Carles Gil replied: “Yes, of course.”

“We are in a very good moment in MLS, so we want to continue like this,” he said.

“It’s exciting,” added central defender Dave Romney. “You kind of get bored after a while just scrimmaging ourselves. It’ll be fun to start playing other teams again and kind of get back in the flow of a regular season schedule.”

Gil and Wood appear to be fully recovered from the knocks that sidelined them against Queretaro, but Bou, according to Williams, is still “dealing with a minor muscle injury. We feel like little by little he’s getting better and hopefully he’ll be on the field soon rather than later.”

Djordje Petrovic reportedly heading to Chelsea FC

Although the transfer had not been made official, a number of media outlets have confirmed that Serbian goalkeeper Djordje Petrovic is leaving the Revolution to join Premier League side Chelsea FC.

According to Tom Bogert of the The Athletic the transfer fee is €16million (£13.6m, $17.4m) plus €2m in add-ons, making this the largest fee to ever be paid for an MLS goalkeeper.

The Revolution acquired Djordje Petrović in April of 2022 because they had agreed to sell U.S. International Matt Turner to Arsenal. After being by-passed in the MLS SuperDraft, Turner joined the Revolution, after a successful preseason tryout in March of 2016. He rose through the ranks, first earning the starting berth in Foxborough and then becoming the starter for the U.S. Men’s National Team.

When Petrovic arrived, there was genuine concern that he would not be able to adequately replace Turner, but he ended all doubts with a series of standout performances and was named finalist for both the MLS Newcomer of the Year Award and the MLS Goalkeeper of the Year Award.

The outstanding performances continued this season and he was rated as the best keeper in MLS, which in turn drew the interest of a number of teams in Europe. The Revolution had already declined inquiries from French side FC Nantes and Nottingham Forest from the Premier League, who reportedly made offers in the range of $10 million dollars, but the bid from Chelsea was just too high to decline.

Former Revolution coach Brad Friedel, a goalkeeper that was a long time U.S. international and played for both Liverpool and Chelsea in England, was interviewed by Sky Sports and predicted that “Djordje Petrovic will be a future Chelsea No 1 goalkeeper.”

“I said last December, I think, when I had an interview in Spain, I think he can be one of the best 10 or 15 goalkeepers in the world. And now he’s having the opportunity to show the level,” Carles Gil told the media after Tuesday’s practice.

Dave Romney said he is really excited for Petrovic.

“You always want that to be you as a kid,” he said. “To see someone else, such a good guy that happened to, you just couldn’t be happier for him. He’s more than enough talented to not just go overseas but play and contribute. I’m honestly so excited to see how he does over there, and I wish him nothing but the best.”

Petrovic’s departure leaves a huge void in net for the Revolution. But The Athletic and the site ‘theblazingmusket.com’ both indicated that the team was apparently in talks to sign Czech Republic international goalkeeper Tomas Vaclik, who is a free agent and therefore could join the team immediately.

Because the MLS transfer window closed on Aug. 2, the Revolution can only add players who remain unsigned elsewhere.

Vaclik, 34, was not offered a new contract by Championship club Huddersfield Town, becoming a free agent this summer. Reports out of England suggest that he had injury issues, primarily with his knees, but he is a very experienced keeper, having stints with Sparta Prague (Czech Republic), Basel (Switzerland), Sevilla (Spain), and Olympiakos (Greece) before joining Huddersfield Town.

Bruce Arena remains on administrative leave

Sporting director and head coach Bruce Arena remains on administrative leave. The most successful coach in MLS history, having won a record five MLS Cups, Arena has turned the Revolution into title contenders but on August 1 the league announced that he had “been placed on administrative leave pending a review into allegations that he made insensitive and inappropriate remarks.”

The Revolution also issued a statement, citing the MLS announcement and added that “the organization takes any allegations of workplace misconduct extremely seriously and is working closely with the League and fully cooperating with its investigation.”

Since then, no information has been provided by either the league or the club, and no media outlet has been able to figure out what the alleged remarks might have been, or identify the individual(s) that was a target of those remarks.

The subject was broached after Tuesday’s practice.

“I don’t have a comment on it because nobody really has any idea what’s going on,” said assistant coach Richie Williams who took over the coaching duties when Arena was placed on leave. “They’re still continuing their investigation and whenever they decide it has come to an end, that’s when they’ll inform us. I really have no comment on that.”

Apparently, the situation has not had a negative impact on the team.

“Yeah, like I said, we can do nothing but train hard, think of what we can do on the pitch, and we'll see what happens,” said Carles Gil.

“Just playing the team in front of me,” added Dave Romney. “That’s all I can really focus on, so that’s all I’m doing. I got a lot of stuff at home going on. Just focusing on the twins, showing up healthy here, and doing the best I can.”

“We’re all professionals so the players are pros and know they need to get it done on the field,” Williams concluded. “We’re all professional coaches so they’ve asked us to work with the team, lead the team and prepare the team everyday now in terms of training and games. We’re going to continue to do that as long as they ask us to do that, and our intent is, ‘It is what it is’ and we just have to get on with it. We’re in a really good position in the league and have played well all season so we want to continue that.”

Tomás Chancalay could see his first game action tomorrow

When midfielder Dylan Borrero, who had emerged as a key figure in the Revolution attack, suffered a season-ending torn ACL in the first half of the April 29 game against FC Cincinnati, the team acted quickly and in July signed Argentine forward Tomás Chancalay on loan from Racing Club. But he has yet to make his MLS debut, something that could actually happen tomorrow.

“Unfortunately, when he played the Revs II game, he only played about 10 minutes before he got injured, so that was unfortunate because we wanted to see him in a game situation, but also we wanted to help him with his fitness, because he hadn’t played in some months,” Williams revealed. “He looks good. He looked good in training and is back on the field and looked fit and healthy. We’re going to monitor him all week so hopefully he continues to progress and we’re going to see if he’s ready to go for the weekend.”

“He is starting now to train, but hopefully he will be fit soon, and he can help us,” Gil added. “He's another player in the attacking third, so hopefully we will have good chemistry and we will have good moments.”

Montreal is tough at home

After the 19-day break, the Revolution will return with a bang as they will three games in a span of eight days, but fortunately after tomorrow’s outing they will return to Gillette Stadium to host the New York Red Bulls (Aug. 30) and Austin FC (Sept. 2).

Although they have struggled on the road, having won only once in their 12 previous outings, Montreal returned from the Leagues Cup break with a 3-2 victory at Toronto. Currently in eighth place, just above the playoff line, they are tough to crack at Stade Saputo, where they have earned 8 wins in 11 tries.

“I think they’re an improved team. They’ve changed up their lineup a little bit in terms of personnel, they like to play,” Williams said. “We’re on the road and going to Montréal is never easy, so it’s going to be a difficult game, and they’re a good team. We have to be ready, and we have to be prepared. They played against Toronto the other night, so they’ve played one game and we’ve been off for a little bit, so you hope that we’d be fresh from the time off that we’ve had off. We want to go up and be competitive play well and get a result.”

“A difficult game, Carles Gil added. “I think they [CF Montreal] showed very good in their last games. So, at home also, they're difficult. But yeah, we will try to continue winning games. We know that Cincinnati lost against Columbus, so we want to be close to them.”

With 11 games remaining in the season, the Revolution are in second place, eight points in back of leader FC Cincinnati but have struggled on the road, earning only 13 points in 11 outings.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: New England Revolution return to MLS action tomorrow in Montreal