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Soccer Nerding: The 2013 Revs by Percentage of Minutes Played

Now that's officially off-season in New England it's time to recap and analyze the season that was in New England. We're looking at who was on the field this season to determine who the core of this team truly is.

By TheIndirectKick
Trevor Ruszkowksi-USA TODAY Spor

There are 34 matches in an MLS regular season.  In addition there are typically a few US Open Cup games sprinkled in to add to the burden.  Excluding US Open Cup, there are a total of 3,060 minutes in the season.  This year Jose Goncalves played every single one of them in heroic fashion while sporting the Captains band.

Who else contributed to this young New England core that analyst remind us has high potential and we are a team to watch?  Take a look at the table below to see who the "Iron Men" of the New England Revolution are.  We took the minutes played by each player and divided by 3,060 possible minute they could have played to determine what percent of the season they played.  (No considerations made for injury, national team call ups, etc.)

*Stats only shown for games with Revs.  Agudelo does not reflect Chivas USA time.

Reaction and Observations

1. Dorman??? Would you ever have thought that Kalifa Cisse played more minutes than Andy Dorman this season?

2. Buying Local: New Englanders make up 13% of the roster yet notice that the local boys Chris Tierney, Diego Fagundez and Scott Caldwell (Charlie Davies excluded) all played above 70% of the season.

3. The Committee: AJ Soares and Stephen McCarthy essentially split time at CB along side Goncalves this season.  Seem to be many opinions out there who's better and it might take it's own post to figure out, but from my vantage point it looks like Heaps played the guy in form this season.

4. Retain this Core: Your top five, what I'll call the core truly is a really great foundation to build this club on.  Diego Fagundez, Lee Nguyen, Kelyn Rowe and Jose Goncalves are all relatively young, healthy and still improving.  

5. Shuttleworth Core-worthy? A heroic late season run anchored by incredible goal keeping by Matt Reis may have made you forget that Bobby Shuttleworth did 67% of the goal keeping for the Revs this year.  Many of those minutes were early in the season as a newly formed back line solidified and adapted to the loss of Kevin Alston.  Shuttleworth did the job very capably but I still sense a reluctance in the fan base that he's the guy going forward as the sunsets on the career of Matt Reis.

6. Charlie Davies: 23 minutes.  That's all we got out of our mid-season signing.  Typically the Revs have grabbed people they don't factor into the current season's plans as a way to trial them and prep them for next season if they are worthy.  With tons of flux at the striker position, is Charlie Davis poised to be the Revs striker in 2014?

7.  There's only Juan: Jerry Bengston eat your heart out.  He played 1% less than you and scored 6 more goals than you.  Juan Agudelo will be missed.  He's better in the air than Bengston, better at holding the ball up and can operate alone.  Bengston is a great garbage man.  Kind of evident that he's not invested in this clubs future so why are we invested in his?  Goodbye once block-bluster DP signing.

8. Random Stats: Bilall Duckett played a full 90 minute game?!  Donnie Smith played 53 minutes in the opener and never saw the field again in 2013. Hmm...

Overall it looks we know who the core of this Revs team is and who it will be next year.  Young guns are getting huge amounts of minutes and the experience that comes along with it.  The danger is developing a core so young is that eventually they all get pretty expensive if you mean to retain them which has been how some great MLS clubs fell apart in recent years.

What observations did you make with the data?  Let us know below in the comment section.


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