This felt more like a coronation than a playoff series.
The New England Revolution entered November as the hottest team in MLS, and two dominant wins over the Columbus Crew - who were, nine short days ago, the second-hottest team in MLS - only confirmed the Revs' royal status. They are rampant, they are intricate, they are unstoppable, and after Sunday's 3-1 win over Columbus (7-3 on aggregate), they are on their way into the Eastern Conference Championship round against the New York Red Bulls.
Here are a few things I saw from this one:
1. Sit back and protect... a bit too much
New England aren't defined by their high pressure quite as much as recent Sporting KC teams have been, but it's still a major facet of how they play. The Revs were second in the league (behind Sporting) with an average of 14 recoveries in the attacking half per game, a huge number for a team with so many clever, elusive attackers.
Think about the goals New England have scored this year. There aren't a ton of long build-ups, the type of 15-pass movements that RSL, LA and even Columbus seemed to produce every other week or so.
No, the Revs force you into mistakes and then punish you for them. It's quick, efficient and ruthless.
But on Sunday, it took a solid 45 minutes for the good ship Revolution to get off the launch pad. Here are their first half recoveries in the attacking half:
For comparison, here's how high and hard they pressed in Leg 2:
This was not by design. Jay Heaps said as much at halftime, pointing out that his team for some reason was just sitting too deep and inviting the Crew forward.
Columbus did what they could to take advantage, having the lion's share of both possession and quality chances through 40 minutes. It seemed like, if they got a goal just before the break, they could make this series interesting.
They just weren't sharp enough. New England, on the other hand...
2. Flipping the switch
The other thing Heaps said at halftime was that he had wingers Kelyn Rowe and Teal Bunbury switch sides, a move that led to the goal.
Even though both Rowe and Bunbury are wingers, they don't go about fulfilling their duties in the same way. Bunbury is much more of a pure attacker, getting into the final third early and often acting as a second forward. Rowe, in most other teams, would be a pure midfielder, staying deeper and controlling the game.
With Rowe on the left side early in this one, then, that pulled Crew right back Eric Gehrig higher up into the play and basically added an extra man to the Columbus midfield. On the other side, left back Waylon Francis was going to overlap no matter how high Bunbury stayed, so suddenly the Crew were in a 2-6-2 formation and the Revs were getting pinched.
Pushing Bunbury to the left side, then, pulled Gehrig back into place and evened out the midfield battle, which in turn was the genesis for this:
The Crew came into this game getting their last rites read to them. That goal was the casket slamming shut.
3. Find your place in the sun
Rowe, by the way, was brilliant. He's become one of the best two-way midfielders in the league, capable of special moments in attack while reading passing lanes like a ballhawk. His indefatiguable tracking allowed left back Chris Tierney to pinch in time and time again early in this one, providing a necessary extra body in the 18.
Just as good was goalkeeper Bobby Shuttleworth, who's not precisely a youngster but was rightly considered an unknown commodity heading into this series. He produced another handful of sterling, demoralizing saves. (Scott Caldwell, meanwhile, was so understatedly reliable that I actually forgot to mention him in the first draft of this).
On the flip side, the Crew's "unknowns" proved to be... well, they weren't good. Steve Clark was once again indecisive off his line; Ethan Finlay was invisible until his unjust sending-off; and nobody was worse than central midfielder Tony Tchani.
Yes, he got the Columbus goal. But his natural inclination toward patience on the ball ended up playing out more as rhythm-breaking dawdling in both legs:
That inability to cut through those loose moments and turn them into chances was one of the two big differences between these two teams.
The other, of course, was Lee Nguyen.
The Revs aren't royalty just yet - they need a crown first. But with the way they're playing, who's going to bet against them winning one?
