FOXBOROUGH — Even with two points dropped against Chicago Saturday, and even with Philadelphia knocking off Sporting Kansas City, 2-0, on Sunday afternoon, New England manager Brad Friedel still believes the team has a chance to make the postseason.
“The onus is on us to win out all of the games,” Friedel said outside of the Revolution locker room Tuesday morning. “All I can ask of the players is that they put in an effort like they did (against Chicago). I feel if we give that kind of an effort again, we have a great chance at the three points.”
New England returned to training Tuesday morning to prepare for Saturday’s match at Toronto FC (7:30 p.m., NBC Sports Boston, WBZ-FM 98.5).
Toronto, the defending MLS champions, are not expected to make the playoffs this year: the Reds (8-15-6) sit ninth in the Eastern Conference table with 30 points, five points adrift of the Revolution (8-10-11, 35 points) and 10 points out of sixth.
The two sides last met at Gillette Stadium on May 12, a 3-2 win for the home side.
While Friedel was disappointed with Saturday’s result against the Fire, he noted that he was not disappointed with the team’s performance: the Revs held upward of 73 percent possession and had well over 500 passes connected against a Chicago team that appeared content to sit back and let its hosts dictate the tempo.
And while the team allowed “two silly goals,” as Friedel put it Tuesday, he understands that mistakes will happen — and they can happen over the remaining five regular-season matches, as long as New England scores more goals than its opponents.
“It doesn’t necessarily need to be clean; we just need to win,” he said. “Sometimes you get results where you don’t play the best, and sometimes you don’t get results when you do deserve it, like the Galaxy game, for instance. You never know what can transpire, but I stand by it: we are in every single game that we play.
“I’ll say it again — it’s like a broken record — other than the second half performance against Montreal, we’re in every single game that we play. (We’re a) very competitive group, and we’re going to be fighting until the end and there’s absolutely no reason why we can’t win out the rest of this season, but we have to take it one game at a time and the next one is Toronto.”
Philadelphia’s win over Sporting Kansas City on Sunday afternoon compounded things for the Revolution. The Union victory put them 11 points clear of both eighth-place New England and seventh-place DC United, who also have 35 points. At 46 points, the Union may be too far ahead for both the Revolution and United to catch, unless Philly goes into the tank over the last month of the season.
The kicker is that DC has a game in-hand on the Revs, as well as an additional win — the first tiebreaker.
DC will play sixth-place Montreal at Audi Field this Saturday night in what is an important six-pointer: if DC wins, it solidifies its hold on seventh, given the five points separating the two. But DC has two games in hand on L’Impact, while the Revs have one match in hand on Montreal.
A Montreal win over United would see L’Impact go to 43 points.
Philadelphia are at Columbus Crew this Saturday, and a win in the Buckeye State would move DOOP to 49 points.
“I’m a bit surprised in the Philly result, but I stand by what I said (Saturday),” Friedel said. “I don’t think it’s going to be smooth sailing for them the rest of the season, and Montreal — it’s in our grasp. We have the game in-hand on them and we play them at home the last game of the season, so we will need a little help in one or two of the games with DC, but it’s still all there to play for.”
“I think (Saturday night’s match)’s going to be an exciting one. We need to win, they need to win. They’re in a little bit more of a desperate situation than we are. Both teams will want to attack — again, no secrets. They’re going to want to pass, we’re going to want to press. I think there’s going to be a lot of chances, hopefully we can do our defensive work very, very good and resolutely, and hopefully we can get off to a good start against them like we did at home.”
The Revs will train throughout the week at Gillette before traveling to Toronto on Friday afternoon.
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Revs centerback Michael Mancienne was angry at himself for his own goal Saturday.
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Revs Homegrown midfielder Isaac Angking was a coach’s scratch from the squad Saturday, which came as a surprise to some given his performances in his last two appearances.
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Two Revolution players are in the top five league-wide for yellow card accumulation.
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Cristian Penilla’s goal Saturday moved him into the Top 25, scoring-wise and without ties.
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We heard just before the dinner hour Tuesday that one-time Revolution defender Chad Barrett, who played with the club in 2013, has retired from professional soccer. He scored two goals in 19 appearances with New England that year.
After 2013, Barrett played with Seattle, San Jose, and finished his career last year with Real Salt Lake.
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Around the area, Boston City FC found out its next opponent in the 2019 US Open Cup qualifiers, and it’ll be the UPSL’s Safira FC of Somerville. The two Inner Belt sides only a few miles apart will square off for the first time ever on Saturday, Oct. 20 at 7 p.m.