FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Forget about fallout. The time to process the pain of missing out on the postseason loomed after the final whistle.
Instead of lamenting their fate after a season-ending defeat at Chicago last weekend, the New England Revolution wrapped up their campaign with a comprehensive 3-0 victory over Montreal on Sunday afternoon.
Revolution coach Jay Heaps praised his players for keeping their focus during the week after the Fire dashed any reasonable Decision Day hopes of securing a playoff spot.
“Tonight could have been a slippery one because we had the devastating loss last week, but we stayed positive,” Heaps told MLSsoccer.com after the 3-0 victory over Montreal. “It would have been nice to get a couple of more goals to crank that up a little bit. How many posts did we hit? Four in one game?”
All of those efforts off the woodwork – combined with the three goals from Diego Fagundez, Juan Agudelo and Kei Kamara – accentuated their incisiveness against a Montreal side trying to balance the instant demands of Decision Day with a Knockout Round game in midweek.
The resulting Revolution fluidity – particularly among that front three – paved the way for a fifth victory in seven matches and underscored the potential of a group that fell short of the postseason on goal difference.
These sorts of complete performances emerged all too infrequently for most of the season. This final display in front of a strong crowd at Gillette Stadium left the Revs to contemplate why they did not summon this performance at Toyota Park or take control of their postseason destiny earlier in the campaign.
“I wish I knew that,” Agudelo said. “If we could play like that every single game, it’d be great. It’s just things that we have to sit down and realize. Our season was relying on the Chicago game. We didn’t do well in that game. Our season ended today on a positive note, but, at the end of the day, it wasn’t the game we needed to win.”
