Super Subs Score Savvy Goal and Secure Success in Saturday Showdown
Oh, happy day, the Revs have won the game. After dominating possession and dictating play for the majority of the game, a few smart substitutions gave the Revolution the edge needed to come away with the one goal victory. Here are my thoughts and experiences from last night’s game in Foxborough.
Going into this match all I knew about Mazatlán, the Revolution’s opponent, was they are second to last in the standings for their league, and the Revs are last in the Eastern Conference in the MLS. So, two not very strong teams. However, I liked that because it gave me confidence the Revs may have a chance! The next piece of data I had going into this match was examining the Revs starting lineup.
Who the freak listed above is going to provide the goals? I asked myself. And I answered to myself, Ian Harkes and Esmir Bajraktarevic are going to need to make something happen. Unfortunately, I have zero faith in the current form of Bobby Wood. Shout out Tommy McNamara who almost had a nice header goal and has been playing great, but I’m not going into the match saying he’s a probably goal unfortunately. Kaye isn’t scoring, Polster likely not. And a decent defensive lineup with the young stud 16-year-old Peyton Miller on the left side killing it. All in all though, Harkes and Esmir I identified as needing to step up and bring the goals.
The first half’s general vibe was the Revolution possessing in Mazatlán’s half, but overall not creating too much real danger. The Revs seemed to be dictating the game but lacked any final finishing touch. Ian Harkes had a moment driving toward net mid first half where he seemed to be caught in two minds. He had a pass to Esmir to his right which could easily have resulted in a goal. He also had his own shot opportunity, and when he has the chance, Harkes has a rip of a shot. Unfortunately, he seemed caught between both ideas and ended up ripping a pretty weak shot far left of the post. As one of my two guys identified to provide scoring, I wasn’t very happy about that play. Right around this time Tommy McNamara had a header opportunity that went just shy of the post, just barely missing to put the Revs up one. After a dominant feeling first half, the score was still zero to zero.
I’m no mathematician or certified smart person but please humor me and follow along. Examine the graph above. Let’s call X “Time”, and Y “The Revolution’s chance of possibly winning this game”. You’ll notice as time passes, “The Revolution’s chance of possibly winning this game” is decreasing, becoming exponentially closer to zero. However, never touching zero. This is called an asymptote. Shout out Corey who helped me work out this scientific conjecture. For I believe this is a true and valid statement as of halftime of this match. If you watch the Revs, you unfortunately know we LOVE to let things linger and let it slide late in matches. Please examine the literal last match we played against Dallas where we lost a 1-0 lead in extra time and ended up with a draw (granted that penalty was BS and that whole thing was BS but whatever, it fits the data, the math doesn’t lie). The longer the Revs let this game linger, the more likely they were to lose.
What my graph didn’t account for was Caleb Porter actually displaying some cojones and in the 64th minute subbing in Ema Boateng for Tommy McNamara and Jack Panayotou in for Mark Anthony Kaye. Shout out the boys Corey, John, Matt and Matt’s lady because we all got hype during this moment. Daps were had. Knuckles were pounded. I most likely said, ‘let’s fucking go’, because this was a winning move. Caleb Porter loves to play safe and passive and get a lead and park the bus with 5 defense and ride games out. Seeing him come out with the offensive subs and go after this W made me very happy. Not surprising, and was totally the right move, but frankly was unexpected in that moment. Also unexpected because we truly had no idea watching the game who was even available on the bench considering the injuries.
I’ll spare you anymore math and graphical analysis and we can crumble up and throw in the trash our previous analysis. 5 minutes later in the 69th minute sub spectacular Jack Panayotou finishes the gimme goal inside the 6-yard box, in the right place at the right time and gives the Revs the 1-0 lead. It’s lovely because this play started with Ian Harkes who we identified as a key to scoring and then played through to Ema Boateng who had a wonderful little flick pass to Matt Polster who hits it across to Jack Panayotou to finish. Great to see both substitutes not but 5 minutes later make direct impact on the game winning goal, Boateng and Panayotou. Credit to them and credit to the coaches making the subs and Caleb Porter.
From there, the Revs held on and besides a few nice attempts that Ivacic had to resort to punching away, there wasn’t much danger in losing the advantage. Overall, this game was a very chill viewing experience I’d say. The first half went by quick and without fuss without even a moment of stoppage time. Not the greatest game by any means, but just some honest reporting here. Besides the Harkes and McNamara chances described earlier, not too much memorable occurred, but the vibe was the Revolution dictating the game. Henceforth why going into the second half our asymptote graph is so important, because the Revs love to dictate games then forget to actually win them. With the offensive minded subs in the 64th minute, the scales were tipped and 5 minutes later a goal finally leaked through. This was all it took for the Revs to take home the win.
It was a great time and a great result. Shout out the homies again, Corey, John, and Matt watching the game with me. Shout out Ben & Gabs who held it down for me against FC Dallas when I couldn’t be at the game. Shout out Colton who runs the site and has been riding with the Revs. Shout out the fam reading every blog. And shout out to you reading these words right here right now.
