The New England Revolution will return to Gillette Stadium next week.
Major League Soccer’s restart will include 18 regular season games following the few that were played in February before the league shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic. The league returned in a closed setting in Orlando, Florida, with the MLS is Back Cup that concluded Tuesday.
According to The Associated Press, players, coaches and support personnel were tested regularly inside the MLS bubble. The league reported just two positives out of nearly 35,000 tests following the initial setbacks that threatened to derail a tournament that came with a $1.1 million purse.
“It was a success,” Revs head coach Bruce Arena said. “Everything was challenging for the players, the coaches, the league, all of that. I think the medical protocols were right on target. Everyone stayed healthy so on that side of it, it was excellent.”
The Revolution held media availability on Wednesday for Arena, defender Alexander Büttner and newly signed midfielder/defender Matt Polster in advance of the restart of the 2020 MLS season.
The Revolution will play the Philadelphia Union at Gillette Stadium at 8 p.m. on Aug. 21 to resume their campaign.
The first six games for the Revolution have already been scheduled. After next week’s game, the Revs play: at D.C. United (Aug. 25), vs. New York Red Bulls (Aug. 29), vs. New York City FC (Sept. 2), at Chicago Fire FC (Sept. 6) and at Philadelphia Union (Sept. 12).
The Revolution are coming off of a mixed showing at the MLS is Back tournament, where they won a game and drew twice in group stage. They lost to the Union in the round of 16 in their last official action.
Büttner was excited to get back on the pitch for the Revolution.
“I think the feeling in the group is good,” Büttner said. “We played some games there and I think we did well. Sometimes you have to score more goals and we’re training on that, but the feeling in the group is really well. Everybody’s training hard, working hard, so as a group we are doing really good and everybody is happy that we can go back to playing games again.”
With the tournament in the rearview mirror, the Revolution are sitting at a 1-1-3 record for the season, good for ninth in the Eastern Conference. After playing only five regular season games since February, the team will soon embark on a schedule where they play roughly every four days.
Polster, who signed with the Revolution last month, will have to quickly get into shape with the team under the tight schedule. Polster’s last game action was in March for his former team, the Rangers of the Scottish Football League.
“It’s obviously a short spell with a lot of games — I’m ready for it,” Polster said. “I think it’s going to be intense and I think it’s going to be tough. I think the sessions here haven’t been very easy whatsoever, so I think going into these games I’ll definitely be fit. It’s now just being able to recover quick enough to play the next game … I am getting close enough to that 90-minute range and when those games come, I know I’ll be ready.”
Arena is also well-aware of the difficulties of the upcoming schedule, but acknowledged that it won’t be unique to the Revolution.
“All the teams in the league over a two- or three-week period are going to be playing three times a week with exception to the last game,” Arena said. “It’s going to be very challenging with the travel, with the limited number of rest days between games. A lot of players are going to be called on. We have a little bit of that experience from the tournament — hopefully that pays some dividends.”
The Revolution will be without captain midfielder Carles Gil for the foreseeable future. Gil was injured in the second half of an MLS is Back tournament game against D.C. United. He had surgery on his Achilles tendon in early August, and will need at least three-to-five months recovery time before returning to play.
The MLS secondary transfer window began on Wednesday and runs through Oct. 29, but Arena doesn’t plan on exploring transfer options to replace his injured star.
“We’ve had two full games without him and half a game. We’ve made the adjustments in our team,” Arena said. “Are we going to do anything in the transfer market to replace him? No, I don’t believe so. We’re at three Designated Players at the moment. We wanted to strengthen our team a little bit with a No. 6. We brought in Matt Polster. There could be a trade or two in the league. But I don’t anticipate us looking outside the league in this transfer window. But having said that, things can change.”
Gil’s presence will be missed on the pitch, but Büttner believes in the depth of the team.
“Of course, everybody knows Carles is a key player for the team,” Büttner said. “He’s such a good player when he has the ball and he always finds players in front of goal. It’s not good that he’s out of the team, but we still have a lot of good midfielders who have to stand up now and show their quality and do the same, or try to do the same as Carles did.”
The next phase of their season kicks off at Gillette on Aug. 21. Though it’ll be a chance to right their loss against the Union in the MLS is Back tournament, Arena is just focused on getting three points.
“I don’t think this is redemption against Philadelphia,” Arena said.