I know, I know: no one wants to read yet another failed US Open Cup story, seeing as we’re 72 hours removed or so from Tuesday’s 3-2 loss to Louisville City FC. (Editor's note: You are correct ... this better be good). I know. This will be my last word on the subject for at least a year (or until I feel the need to chime in again):
Before their US Open Cup games on Wednesday, Seattle Sounders and Los Angeles Galaxy both signed six players from their “MLS 2” sides to short-term loan deals for their respective cup ties. For the Galaxy, it worked (much like everything does for them... no, I'm not bitter about this): Los Angeles beat a PDL club, and advanced to the Fifth Round.
For Seattle, like everything else happening for them this year, it didn’t work. The Sounders lost. It happens. That’s football.
I see those moves as advantageous ones for those clubs, as those players allowed Sounders and Galaxy first teamers a rest for the midweek fixture.
It leads me to ask (and channel my inner Bob Lobel), after seeing New England’s starting XI and bench for the trip to Kentucky, why can’t the Revs do something like that?
Oh, wait… yeah... because that option isn’t available to them.
Back when we started on the Revolution beat in April, we wrote a two-part series about the club’s ambition, or the perceived lack thereof. In the first of those two pieces, we listed four things The Boys In Blue’s front office can do (one with the help of a state agency) to help things along and to give those on the outside looking in the feeling that yes, the Revs are doing something.
The fourth item on that list, had it been in place long before now, could have helped Robert Kraft’s Not-So-Favored Sons out on Tuesday.
For a refresher:
The Revolution are — surprise, surprise — behind the ball when it comes to getting on board the USL train. In fact, the Revs are one of three clubs in Major League Soccer — Orlando City SC and Columbus Crew SC — without a USL affiliate. Two current players — Mark Segbers to Orange County SC, Femi Hollinger-Janzen to Tulsa for one match — have experienced USL loans this season … to clubs not affiliated with the Revs.
This needs to change.
We can point to the Revs’ prior relationship with the USL’s on-hiatus Rochester Rhinos, which began in 2013. Several Revs players were loaned to the Rhinos in order to get playing time, but after 2015, this connection evaporated for some reason or another.
In fact, the last Rev property to play on the Rhinos? Tyler Rudy. He’s retired now.
Hartford will get a USL club next year, thanks to the renovations to Dillon Stadium. It would make sense for the Revolution to connect with them … but it would also make sense for New York City FC — who have a USL affiliate in San Antonio, and that makes about as much sense as the Mets having their Triple-A affiliate in Las Vegas — to connect with Hartford, too; after all, NYCFC did play at Rentschler last year due to late-season conflicts with the Yankees.
If the Revolution cannot connect with Hartford — and if they are trying for that, fantastic — then the club should finance a USL affiliate to give the players that are stagnating on the bench the opportunity to play and develop. Several MLS clubs have “MLS 2” teams, like the Red Bulls, Portland, Galaxy, Toronto, and Seattle, and some of them play in the home ground. Some play elsewhere.
A Revs-based USL/MLS 2 club playing in Gillette, or even at a college field in Boston (did someone say Nickerson Field, right on the Green Line?), would be a perfect fit.