Zachary Herivaux, Brian Wright heading out on loan to Birmingham Legion FC

The Revolution Thursday announced they have loaned Homegrown midfielder Zachary Herivaux and third-year striker Brian Wright to USL Championship side Birmingham Legion FC.

The loans are open-ended according to the club, which means New England can recall the players at any time.

In addition, the club announced that Justin Rennicks and Gabriel Somi will be unavailable for next Sunday’s home match against FC Cincinnati, with those two players heading out on national team duty: Rennicks with the US U-20s, and Somi with Syria.

Herivaux, too, will be with Haiti for CONCACAF Nations League play against Cuba.

BSJ Analysis

Certainly an unexpected move, these open-ended loan deals, but it’s not necessarily unwelcome to these eyes.

Let’s not mince words: Herivaux and Wright are two players who were in a never-ending fight for time on the pitch, and are now heading to a place where they can get those minutes — and do so alongside some friendly faces, to boot. While the loans are open-ended and the Revs can recall them whenever they want, I don't think they necessarily will.

For Brookline’s Herivaux, this is a very good thing, and is quite frankly the best move he could ever make. In the previous four seasons since he signed his Homegrown contract, he has only played 196 first-team minutes, with 158 coming last season. We’ve written before of how he just simply looks nervous when he comes on for New England, with the exception of a quality run-out against Toronto a year ago. In short, he has struggled to find time with the first team, given the players ahead of him (Scott Caldwell, Wilfried Zahibo, Luis Caicedo) on the depth chart. To get minutes in Birmingham would be a blessing for Herivaux’s career. Heck, we think it might even extend it.

For Wright, the loan should almost certainly spell the end of his MLS career — unless something happens to a good deal of the options ahead of him on the Revs’ depth chart, and his presence is needed. In his first two seasons as a pro, Wright has played 303 minutes in 12 league appearances, with one goal scored. We figure that like former Revolution draft pick Femi Hollinger-Janzen, who was in his third year out of Indiana last year, his contract would not be extended into 2020 and he would head to the USL next season anyway. He’s just a year ahead of schedule, and if this helps him get minutes, score some goals, and gets him his next pro contract, then all’s well that ends well.

In addition, Birmingham should be a rather friendly squad to these two young men, given the USL club’s connections to the Revs: former manager Jay Heaps — who signed Herivaux from the Academy and drafted Wright in 2016 — is the general manager, while Tom Soehn, Heaps’ right-hand man while in Foxborough, is the first-team manager. Femi’s there, and so, too, is former defensive midfielder Daigo Kobayashi. Former Revolution backup goalkeeper Trevor Spangenburg, who was here in 2015 when not on the Foxborough-to-Richmond shuttle, is with the Legion, and former defender Khano Smith is a first-team assistant.

Quite simply, we’re rooting for both to succeed in Birmingham.