North American Pro Soccer 2019

[Brian in Boston]

While the Kraft family has been driven to establish the New England Patriots as a benchmark, best-practices organization within the National Football League (indeed, it can be argued, amongst all major professional sports franchises), they've been content with operating the Revolution with minimal effort... as an afterthought. As such, the 24th season of Robert and Jonathan Kraft's stewardship of the New England Revolution is going to be marked by the same indifference that has plagued the franchise the previous 23 seasons.

 

Put simply, the Revolution are nothing more than an entry in a ledger to Robert and Jonathan Kraft. The franchise is a means by which the Krafts maintain a share in Soccer United Marketing, stay on the radar as a potential host for high-profile international tournaments and matches (i.e. the World Cup, Gold Cup, country and club friendlies), fill dates on the Gillette Stadium event calendar during the Patriots' off-season, and drive foot-traffic to tenants within Patriot Place. 

Season after season, the New England Revolution payroll has been amongst the lowest in Major League Soccer. The team has, throughout its history, repeatedly failed to maintain a roster up to the league's minimum number of players. With the exception of the 2014 signing of Jermaine Jones - a situation in which MLS leadership practically forced one of the league's least-ambitious teams to acquire a truly difference-making talent - Revolution designated players have been DPs in name only. Off-season efforts to add meaningful player talent have been haphazard, more often than not resulting in the squad failing to develop cohesiveness during training camp, and entering the season lacking the chemistry necessary to get off to a strong start. If the likes of Brian Bilello and Mike Burns are any indication, the primary qualification for holding down a front-office job with the Revolution seems to be toeing the Kraft-dictated line without so much as thinking of rocking the boat. Marketing... public relations... scouting... in area after area of operations, the New England Revolution have been run as a bare-bones, bargain-basement outfit. 

 

The Krafts' ownership of the New England Patriots is born of passion and rooted in the experiences that Bob shared with his sons - Jonathan, Daniel, Josh, and David - as Pats' season ticket-holders for 20-plus seasons. By contrast, their investor-operator status with the New England Revolution is born of pure, profit-driven pragmatism. Plain and simple.

Bottom line? The Krafts are about as emotionally-invested in the Revolution as they are in their packaging holdings, such as Rand-Whitney and International Forest Products. It shows... much to the chagrin of the swiftly-dwindling contingent of New England-based MLS supporters.

[tBBP]

Out of curiosity, how much would MLS stand to lose if they were to contact the Revolution franchise due to, as best as I can infer from what I've read, incompetence and indifference? Or is that even possible?

 

Also, anyone know what Garber's and Kraft's relationship is like? Again just curious. (This is the kind of stuff I know jack diddly about...)

[Digby]

5 minutes ago, Buc said:

Out of curiosity, how much would MLS stand to lose if they were to contact the Revolution franchise due to, as best as I can infer from what I've read, incompetence and indifference? Or is that even possible?

 

feel like that's not possible / exceedingly unlikely. No precedent in the league that I can think of at least. And I mean it's not like the Revs are wrecking the league, they're just underperforming on and off the field.  I would imagine any attempt to force out the Krafts as investors would be a legal headache not worth it. Even the Chivas treatment was just the league selling Chivas to the future LAFC group; not sure who decided on the subsequent two- or three-year break for LA2.

[Red Wolf]

I was just thinking about how maybe the Revs should relocate to St. Louis. Finally make good on the threats about the Patriots moving there in the early 90s. I don't really want that to happen, but it doesn't seem like a whole lot of people would care at this point.

[Digby]

On 3/24/2019 at 10:12 PM, Viper said:

Today I made the first of many pilgrimages to Allianz Field - in this case, for a special season ticket holders' event.

The first picture is from just inside the southwest gate. The other two were taken from the highest accessible point in the stadium - the top of the east-side upper deck's center section.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm tired of dwelling on the dumb mess in Foxboro, so -- this is quite something. The "brew hall" bit is lacking in subtlety but I know where I'd be watching a game with a Surly in hand.

[SFGiants58]

@Brian in Boston, you’ve got a good copypasta there.

[Brian in Boston]

1 hour ago, Buc said:

Also, anyone know what Garber's and Kraft's relationship is like?

To hear Garber tell the tale, he owes Robert Kraft - as well as Lamar Hunt - his job.

Garber was serving as the senior vice-president and managing director of NFL International when Kraft and Lamar Hunt tabbed him to replace Doug Logan as commissioner of MLS.

The Soccer Don

"I was at the NFL owners meeting in Atlanta in 1999," recalls Garber. "Robert Kraft came up to me and said, 'Son, what do you know about soccer?'" Garber confessed that he didn't know much outside of coaching his son. Kraft responded, "We're about to change that," and brought Garber to talk to Hunt. "They mentioned they were thinking of making a change with the existing MLS commissioner, " says Garber of the conversation, "and by the end of the weekend, I had been traded. I went from selling American football overseas to selling the real football here in the U.S." 

In other words, Garber isn't likely to put too much pressure - if any at all - on Bob Kraft when it comes to his stewardship of the New England Revolution.

 

[Crabcake]

It’s been said before, but it’s worth repeating: the Revs are run like an MLS 1.0 franchise in every sense of the phrase. 

[Gothamite]

They were in the MLS Cup Final not all that long ago....

[Red Wolf]

4 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

They were in the MLS Cup Final not all that long ago....

 

I can't believe that was only 5 seasons ago. The league is changing so rapidly that it feels like that may as well have been 2004. That was also during a period of time when the East was just a garbage dump. It was like the NBA's Eastern Conference but without one of the greatest players the sport had ever seen rampaging through it.

[FiddySicks]

5 hours ago, Red Wolf said:

I was just thinking about how maybe the Revs should relocate to St. Louis. Finally make good on the threats about the Patriots moving there in the early 90s. I don't really want that to happen, but it doesn't seem like a whole lot of people would care at this point.

 

You spelled Sacramento wrong. 

[Gothamite]

Indeed.   No jumping the line, St. Louey. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

6 hours ago, Red Wolf said:

 

I can't believe that was only 5 seasons ago. The league is changing so rapidly that it feels like that may as well have been 2004. That was also during a period of time when the East was just a garbage dump. It was like the NBA's Eastern Conference but without one of the greatest players the sport had ever seen rampaging through it. 

 

The Revs made MLS Cup because Jermaine Jones came in and was incredible. And then he went to Colorado the next year and nearly got them the Supporters Shield. Jermaine Jones was an absolute difference maker for a year and a half in MLS, and then he lost it very quickly.

[Red Wolf]

6 hours ago, Bucfan56 said:

 

You spelled Sacramento wrong. 

 

That would ruin my parallel with the Patriots though. If I had my druthers, the next MLS teams would be Sacramento because y'all deserve it, and Tampa Bay because I have such a deep love for the idea of a team called the Rowdies. 

[Digby]

8 hours ago, DG_Now said:

 

The Revs made MLS Cup because Jermaine Jones came in and was incredible. And then he went to Colorado the next year and nearly got them the Supporters Shield. Jermaine Jones was an absolute difference maker for a year and a half in MLS, and then he lost it very quickly.

 

I think there was another full season in there for Jones in New England where he was mostly hurt and they weren't all that good. Also I think Lee Nguyen deserves more credit for that flash of Revs competitiveness in the 2010s -- he was unstoppable in attack for a while there, shame Klinsmann never gave him a proper USMNT runout when he was peaking. That 2014 run did seem like mostly a bunch of fringe USMNT'ers all peaking together, at the right time, with Jones as the guy who activated all that. Nguyen, Kelyn Rowe, AJ Soares, Chris Tierney, Charlie Davies... not exactly a historic squad but that's about what that era of American soccer looked like.

 

Bizarre to me that Brad Friedel ran Nguyen out of town. I admire Friedel's attempts at bringing another piece of Euro soccer culture to MLS, namely petty antagonism between the coach and the players, but it doesn't seem to be working.

[Digby]

Also! Is this the place to talk current USMNT?

 

These two most recent friendlies were the first games I've watched since Trinidad (sorry Dave Sarachan). Would have been nice to see the two best young bucks not go down with injuries. The Ecuador game concerned me because I think this squad needs to be better about breaking down the opponents in a CONCACAF-y game like that; I thought they looked decent last night considering how many bench guys were on the field, but they still looked a little bit too under-pressure all the time for my liking. Nice to see another act for Michael Bradley though. He rightfully takes a lot of stick but I also felt that Klinsmann and Arena both insisted on using him incorrectly. Maybe this regime + being the old head will allow him to play the game that he's actually good at.

[MJWalker45]

25 minutes ago, Digby said:

Also! Is this the place to talk current USMNT?

 

These two most recent friendlies were the first games I've watched since Trinidad (sorry Dave Sarachan). Would have been nice to see the two best young bucks not go down with injuries. The Ecuador game concerned me because I think this squad needs to be better about breaking down the opponents in a CONCACAF-y game like that; I thought they looked decent last night considering how many bench guys were on the field, but they still looked a little bit too under-pressure all the time for my liking. Nice to see another act for Michael Bradley though. He rightfully takes a lot of stick but I also felt that Klinsmann and Arena both insisted on using him incorrectly. Maybe this regime + being the old head will allow him to play the game that he's actually good at.

I'd say they were brought in for that reason. I'm pretty sure Berhalter didn't expect them to play Mourinho-ball though. Yesterday saw a lot of aggressiveness  but not as much continuity that they need. And Tim Ream needs to be a CB or off the field. He's not a LB and two games in a row he's messed up big time. 

[Digby]

15 minutes ago, MJWalker45 said:

I'd say they were brought in for that reason. I'm pretty sure Berhalter didn't expect them to play Mourinho-ball though. Yesterday saw a lot of aggressiveness  but not as much continuity that they need. And Tim Ream needs to be a CB or off the field. He's not a LB and two games in a row he's messed up big time. 

 

It wasn't that long ago that Ream felt like a gem in the player pool. But not only are you correct there, but he's had a few cringey moments with Fulham too (though who hasn't on that team this season). Yikes.

[Digby]

This is a bad look.

 

"It is more expensive to watch the US than world champions France. Why?"

 

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/mar/27/usmnt-ticket-prices-soccer-usa-chile

 

Quote

 

Tuesday’s crowd of 18,033 in a venue with an on-the-night capacity of 21,500 now seems a respectable figure for a programme with a pricing strategy reminiscent of a luxury brand pitching itself to high-end consumers.

It was reported that the average attendance for US World Cup qualifiers declined from 31,158 in the 2002 cycle to 22,636 for 2018, yet total revenue soared from about $7m to more than $17.5m as the average ticket price leapt from $28.05 to $97.06.

 

 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

3 hours ago, Digby said:

This is a bad look.

 

"It is more expensive to watch the US than world champions France. Why?"

 

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/mar/27/usmnt-ticket-prices-soccer-usa-chile

 

 

 

I hate that money is more important than growing the game.

 

I like that Berhalter has had some initial success, but the enthusiasm I had for USMNT in 2013-2016 is far faded.