Revolution preparing for long layoff before playoffs

Sunday was all about celebrating the New England Revolution’s historic season that saw them lift the Supporters’ Shield for the first time in club history.

But now the confetti has been cleared and the pictures have been taken. Now it’s time for the playoffs.

Thanks to New England’s amazing performance, they have a first-round bye. While it’s always good to get some rest after a long and especially congested season, the Revolution will once again be battling the infamous rest versus rust debate.

New England won’t play until November 30th when they face either NYCFC or Atlanta United. That is a mighty long time to go without playing a competitive match.

While Bruce Arena said after the match that they still had to decide what the plan will be, veteran midfielder Tommy McNamara said that everyone needs to be held accountable.

“It’s up to the coaching staff to come up with the plan,” he said. “However we’re going to train, the games we’re going to play – whether it’s outside competition or amongst ourselves – and then it comes down to us individually. We’ve been through a few breaks already this year with international breaks. I know this one’s a little bit longer, but we’ve experienced it before, So, I think everybody just kind of individually needs to kind of consider what they need to do to be prepared, and then as a group, as a collective, we need to hold each other accountable and understand that we’re getting ready for the playoffs and it’s one and done. So, it’s about holding each other accountable around the training pitch.”

While winning the Supporters’ Shield is one thing, a first round exit is likely going to leave Revolution fans angry. McNamara said that the Revs need to be much more ruthless when the playoffs come around.

“I said it before in those games, we need to be a little bit more ruthless on the attacking end and on the defensive end,” he said. “We had chances to score goals and we didn’t take them. We didn’t really give up too many chances, but the one chance or the couple of chances that we gave up they ended up scoring. So, this is what is going to be in the playoffs. It’s going to be tight games. Maybe it’ll be different with New York City in Atlanta for the first round, how they’re going to come out and play, but the games are going to be tight and when you get moments to win the game, you need to take it both offensively and defensively.”