Revolution 1-2 Crew: the Universe Doesn't Want New England to Win

It was more of the same in Foxboro on Saturday night with the New England Revolution falling 2-1 to the Columbus Crew. The loss was their eighth in a row, which is a new club record for the non-shootout era. At least this time they scored, right?

Step one to avoiding this result was not giving up the early goal. The Revs managed that, at least, going the first 40 minutes without conceding. Of course, in typical fashion, they had a lot of bright spots, and then still conceded the first goal of the match. Darrius Barnes committed a silly foul at the edge of the box, and Federico Higuain punished them with a world-class free kick. 1-0.

Going into Saturday night, the Revs were 1-10-1 after giving up the first goal, so arguably the result was decided at that point. But A.J. Soares demonstrated that he is literally the only player on the entire roster who is willing to get himself open on set pieces and powered in a header off a corner (near post run, he's done that before) to tie the game up.

It was back-and-forth, cut-and-thrust, say whatever you will about it: the match was pretty exciting after that. Yet again, the Revs created a bunch of chances and put away none of them. Diego Fagundez looks like he's completely lost his confidence. Kelyn Rowe is hungry but aimless. Patrick Mullins looked sluggish. And then, Barnes committed another defensive error, this time committing to a silly challenge on Ethan Finlay who had broken the defense open, and Finlay scored a one-on-one and that was it.

Oh, and Dimitry Imbongo got back on the pitch. He didn't really show well.

So my reaction to the game is this: shut it down. Shut it all down. Nothing is working, so change everything. Or don't. At this point, it almost seems like a cosmic force doesn't want the Revs to win. They keep looking better, and then losing anyway. There is no solution, only despair.