FOXBOROUGH — Paraphrasing from one of The Who’s greatest hits, Won’t Get Fooled Again: Meet the new last, same as the last two lasts.
OK, it's not as poignant as when Roger Daltry sang it, but still: Montreal — the same team the Revolution have played in the last two season finales; last year’s ender was at State Saputo — comes to Gillette Stadium on Sunday afternoon (4:30 p.m., NBC Sports Boston/WBZ-FM 98.5) for the final game of the 2018 Major League Soccer season. It marks the third time the two sides of faced off this year: the Revs beat L’Impact, 4-0, on April 6 here, while Montreal downed New England, 4-2, in Montreal on May 5.
Yet while the Revolution have out-scored Montreal, 6-2, in the past two season finales and 6-4 this season, the past doesn’t matter — especially when one of the two teams still has something to play for in terms of potentially playing football into the month of November.
Montreal is currently seventh in the Eastern Conference table with 46 points, two points in arrears to sixth-place Columbus Crew. The Crew host Minnesota United, and they are in control of their own destiny.
But, a Montreal win over the Revolution and a Columbus draw with or loss to Minnesota United would see L’Impact return above the red line at the last gasps of the regular season, and launch it into the playoffs. That would be due to the wins tiebreaker: Montreal currently has 14 wins to Columbus’ 13.
So in short: expect the tourists from Quebec, paced by electric forward Ignacio Piatti (16 goals) in 2018; 50 goals through three season) and backed by MLS saves leader Evan Bush (130 saves, 10 clean sheets), to come to Gillette firing on all cylinders Sunday.
But outside of that, let’s take a look at both playoff-eligible teams’ run of form, shall we? Columbus has five points in its last six matches, while Montreal is surging with 13 points in its last six.
It begs the question, and really the only question that matters: Can the Revs hold L’Impact and play spoiler? Or will New England’s defense spoil Columbus’ hopes (of course, Columbus is in control of its own destiny, and would only have itself to blame should it lose to the Loons)?
We’ll know the answer by 6:30 p.m.
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