Heaps Out, But Who’s to Blame in New England?

Hope springs eternal one week into the post-Jay Heaps era for the New England Revolution after a surprise 2-1 victory over table-toppers Toronto FC on Saturday. But despite taking three points from their first match since the skipper’s dismissal last week, the Revs will likely need to win out and receive a good bit of help to avoid missing the MLS Playoffs for a second consecutive year.

Who’s to blame for the slide into mediocrity since their 2014 MLS Cup appearance? Heaps was the first on the chopping block, yet many have questioned Revolution General Manager Mike Burns as well. Voices around the league from prominent agents, to national soccer writers, to the Twitter artist formerly known as @FakeJayHeaps have pointed to the GM’s culpability.

Burns stepped into his role as GM at the same time as Jay Heaps was brought before the 2012 season. In the build to 2014, he played a role in earning the Revolution a reputation for drafting well, utilizing homegrown players and making clever low risk-high reward acquisitions. Is any of that true in 2017? Has it been true since 2014?

The importance of the FIFA video games series is undeniable. The game in recent years has become one of the world’s highest selling and most popular video games. Within that, there has be a huge growth of sales in America. More sales in FIFA sees more Soccer viewership on TV and at live matches in the United States. As someone who didn’t play soccer growing up, FIFA was my introduction into the world of the sport. While playing FIFA I learned the strategy and nuances of the game. I learned how to build a patient attack and to appreciate a less glorious position like central defensive midfielder for their importance in the game.

FIFA 18 comes out this Friday and promises real individual player motion technology, authentic stadium atmospheres, and a continuation of last year’s story mode “The Journey”. There will even be a release on the Nintendo Switch which along with NBA 2K18 will be the console’s first major third party sports release. In advance of this, EA Sports has released all the ratings for each player in the game through their Ultimate Team cards on the FUT Database on the EA Sports FIFA website.

This means that we get an early look at what the New England Revolution will look like in the game. The developers have appeared to given the Revolution an accurate representation. The depth at attacking positions is evident and the the shakiness in defense is there. Players like Benjamin Angoua have gone down from a 74 last year to a 71. And Josh Smith has gotten a boost to 64. If there is one major gripe with the ratings it is that Lee Nguyen, one of the most talented players in Major League Soccer, is only a 75. He doesn’t even crack the top 20 players in MLS. Nguyen should at least be a 77 or 78 so he can rank among Romain Allesandrini and Michael Bradley as a top midfielder.

Here are the Revolution’s overall individual ratings in order along with their listed position.

CAM Lee Nguyen - 75

ST Kei Kamara - 74

St Krisztian Nemeth - 72

CB Benjamin Angoua - 71

ST Juan Agudelo - 71

LM Diego Fagundez - 71

CB Antonio Delamea - 70

CAM Kelyn Rowe - 70

CB Claude Dielna - 69

CDM Xavier Kouassi - 69

RB Andrew Farrell - 69

CDM Gershon Koffie - 68

LB Chris Tierney - 67

ST Teal Bunbury - 67

CM Scott Caldwell - 66

GK Brad Knighton - 66

GK Cody Cropper - 66

RB London Woodberry - 65

CM Daigo Kobayashi -64

RB Je-Vaughn Watson - 64

CB Joshua Smith - 64

LM Donnie Smith - 63

ST Femi Hollinger-Janzen -60

ST Brian Wright - 59

CM Zachary Herivaux - 58

GK Matt Turner - 52

The New England Revolution defeated Toronto FC 2-1 on Saturday night at Gillette Stadium.

It was a scoreless game until the 82nd minute when Lee Nguyen scored which set off a 5-minute window where 3 goals were scored.

Two for the Revolution, one for first place Toronto.

Even with the playoff chances being next to zero it was a good start to Tom Soehn’s Revolution coaching career with the team moving on from Coach Jay Heaps earlier in the week.

Below is the full Tweet story from the game.

Tweet Story

We are off #NERevs

— Tanner Rebelo (@TannerRebelo) September 23, 2017

End of 1st half here is 0-0 #NERevs #MLS

— Tanner Rebelo (@TannerRebelo) September 23, 2017

It looks like Paws has followed me to the #NERevs. He is here in part of the mascot halftime soccer game

— Tanner Rebelo (@TannerRebelo) September 23, 2017

$2,094,620, that is the total number raised by Robert Kraft and fans in support of #HurricaneHarveyrelief #NERevs

— Tanner Rebelo (@TannerRebelo) September 23, 2017

19,303 is tonights attendance #NERevs #MLS

— Tanner Rebelo (@TannerRebelo) September 23, 2017

And the fans erupt, Lee Nguyen buries the first goal of the game. 1-0 #NERevs in the 82 minute #MLS

— Tanner Rebelo (@TannerRebelo) September 23, 2017

And it is tied, 1-1 #NERevs defense gives up a goal 2 minutes after their own

— Tanner Rebelo (@TannerRebelo) September 23, 2017

And just like that, the crowd comes back to life with Kei Kamara smoking a ball into the back of the net 2-1 in the 88th minute #NERevs

— Tanner Rebelo (@TannerRebelo) September 23, 2017

#NERevs win their first game under Tom Soehn 2-1 FT

— Tanner Rebelo (@TannerRebelo) September 23, 2017