Short Corners: Wrong players, not tight schedule, to blame for Open Cup loss

When Chris Tierney went down with a knee injury last Wednesday and the diagnosis of a torn ACL came through two days later, my first thought was, “Well, they can’t really go for the Open Cup now? How can you go for two competitions when you don’t really have quality depth at left back?”

The next night, Brad Friedel said, “We’ve got a really good squad; whoever I put on the field, we fully expect to win. We’re going to Louisville to win the game ... No matter who gets on the field, we expect to have a good performance and hopefully progress in the Open Cup.”

As it turned out, that didn't happen: New England's mainly second-choice squad lost, 3-2, to a talented Louisville City side, and now only have to concentrate on maintaining its league positioning from now until the end of October.

Here are two takeaways from the match:

The players just weren’t good enough

Friedel put out the following XI Tuesday: Brad Knighton in goal, with Andrew Farrell, rookies Brandon Bye and Nico Samayoa, and Gabriel Somi from right to left; Wilfried Zahibo and Scott Caldwell in the defensive midfield, with Zach Herivaux, Mark Segbers, Femi Hollinger-Janzen, and Brian Wright in the attacking positions.

In that lineup, we see a mix of experience — Knighton was the ’16 Cup hero who eventually supplanted Bobby Shuttleworth down the stretch, Farrell has played well over 170 matches, Caldwell has some of the most minutes in MLS since 2011; Somi and Zahibo have also been regulars through the first three months — and players who have little to none in either competition — Wright has seen a few run-outs from the bench in the last few weeks, Herivaux had a lengthy spell against Toronto and playing 67 minutes for Haiti against Lionel Messi and Argentina a week before, Bye has seen minutes; Femi hadn’t even made a first team matchday squad until Tuesday, Samayoa was making his first appearance, and so, too, was Segbers.

The bench, too, had experience and quality: Cody Cropper, Juan Agudelo, Kelyn Rowe, Jalil Anibaba, Claude Dielna, Cristian Penilla, and Krisztian Nemeth. You’ll notice that Diego Fagundez, Luis Caicedo, nor Matt Turner were involved, and regulars Anibaba, Agudelo, and Rowe were subbed on for Samayoa, Somi, and Hollinger-Janzen, respectively, when the latter trio were either hurt (Samayoa, Hollinger-Janzen) or couldn’t cut the mustard (Somi, Hollinger-Janzen). Now...

The Open Cup is traditionally a time when the manager will use lineups such as these to give regular first teamers a rest; with the roster size the way it is in MLS, playing a Zahibo and a Caldwell and a Farrell were by necessity. In other countries, in leagues with teams that have much larger roster sizes than here in MLS, you’ll watch managers trot out full reserve rosters for domestic cup matches — for example, the August-to-February League Cup in England — and they live and die with the kids to whatever end. Now-former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger was well-known, and in some circles, vilified, for doing this. This isn’t exactly a bad thing, nor do I consider it an issue.

What do I consider an issue? As we’ve heard throughout the season, the competition and work rate in training at Gillette is high, the competition for places in the squad is high, and so on. We knew we would see kids and non-regulars for this match, and that would be the case for however long the Revs were in the tournament.

One way to look at it is that if this is truly the case, the Revolution should not have been thoroughly out-played the way it was by Louisville City (and fair play to Louisville; no one is arguing against it being the better side, not by a long shot). New England’s players just did not look ready to go, the early score line notwithstanding, nor willing to really put out a high work rate.

But we can also look at it like this: If the back end of this New England roster took this match seriously as an opportunity to impress the manager and the fan base, or were good enough, period, we wouldn’t be having this conversation today. Simply put, the back end just could not put together a full 90 minutes to get the job done against a good USL side.

It makes me wonder, then, what would those do if, in the case of injury to another first teamer, they find themselves thrown on against a quality MLS side in an emergency down the stretch? I think you know the answer to that, as it’s crystal clear.

Unfortunately, this has been New England’s Achilles heel for some time: not having true quality at the back end (or in the middle) of the roster to plug in when necessary. That's down to scouting the right players, and signing the right players.

Don’t blame fixture congestion and fatigue

We’re hearing a lot — hell, I’ve said it a few times — that the Revolution are in the midst of a rather crowded portion of the schedule. Tuesday’s match against Louisville City was New England’s fourth match in 10 days (Vancouver May 26, Atlanta United May 30, New York June 2), and there just happens to be two more matches before the club goes into playing hiatus for the FIFA-mandated World Cup break. The club will, however, train during this fortnight in anticipation of the resumption of activities on June 30, when DC United comes to Route 1.

Some have taken the opportunity to slag the crowded slate for New England’s failure to advance, and I’m here to say that’s not the case.

Soccer players are some of the most fit athletes on the planet, conditioned to run upward of 8-9 miles in two hours. Professional footballers all around the world deal with the added matches, as we’ve already said; it’s not unusual for a team to play at the weekend, play a midweek match, and then another one at the weekend again. It happens all the time to top clubs. With proper rest, there should be no issue.

With the World Cup, there needed to be a way to get all the matches in; losing two weeks to the group stages certainly wasn’t ideal, but the schedule makers had to find a way to get all 34 games into the league calendar, plus leave room for the US Open Cup availabilities. It happens every four years (well, it won’t in four years... because bribery), and one look at the schedule (and knowing when the US Open Cup is traditionally played) could tell anyone that this would be an important stretch for the Revs. Honestly, this should not be a problem to anyone.

And don’t forget: Major League Soccer is still expanding, with three cities —  Miami, Nashville, and Cincinnati — all east of the Mighty Mississippi, all expected to enter the league by 2020. That would put the league at 26 teams, with two more expansion cities (Detroit, Sacramento, San Diego) planned.

In all likelihood, there will be no change to the March to October regular-season calendar (can you really see yourself going to Gillette and freezing your butt off with a wind chill, in the snow? I sure as hell can’t, and my seat is indoors), which, if the current alignments and match allocation continues, would mean additional fixtures, possibly coming in the form of midweek matches to fit everything in.

There’s no way to avoid it: fixture congestion is a part of soccer, and will be for the foreseeable future. It is all down to how you manage your roster in anticipation of the congestion.