Sweeney: In his first appearance in a year and a half, Cody Cropper gave the Revs exactly what was needed

FOXBOROUGH — Since the end of the 2017 season, Cody Cropper has been in a bit of goalkeeper purgatory, if you will.

The last time the Maple Grove, Minn. native pulled on the starter’s jersey for the Revolution? That came on Sept. 27 that year, with The Boys In Blue getting absolutely annihilated by Orlando City SC that night, 6-1. It was a full two weeks after that abysmal showing against Atlanta United, and Cropper had been in goal on that particular night, too.

After a year-plus, a total of 42 matches in both competitions, of watching Matt Turner and Brad Knighton start ahead of him — and being the subject of transfer bait rumor this past offseason — Cropper found his number called by Revs manager Brad Friedel to pull on his No. 1 jersey with Minnesota United FC in town Saturday afternoon.

And with nerves of steel, Cropper delivered.

Cropper crossed 2,700 minutes played in MLS and came up with two saves to hand the Revolution their first win of the season, a 2-1 triumph over the Loons in front of an announced 10,567.

In his first post-match presser for some time, the 26-year-old noted that watching matches from the club seats or from home has “been a grind mentally, physically, and emotionally.”

“There's been ups and downs, and that's part of professional sports, as part of this business,” Cropper said. “I think that every player at some stage in their career has gone through that. But, you know, to go out there today, and to put a 90-minute performance together for the first time since ’17, over a year, nearly a year and six months. I can't even describe the feeling; I know every time I talk about it, I'm just getting goosebumps. And that's what I was born to do. You know, I've played this game since I was 3-years old. And you know, it's what I love.”

With a great deal of the game played on the other side of the pitch — the Revs had a little under 50 percent of the possession, but with the way the New England midfield controlled the tempo as well as neutralizing Darwin Quintero, it felt like more — Cropper only had to find himself called into action a handful of times.

“From a defensive standpoint, Michael (Mancienne) and Jalil (Anibaba), and Edgar (Castillo) and (Andrew) Farrell and Scotty (Caldwell) dealt very well with Quintero and (MNUFC striker Angelo) Rodriguez,” Cropper explained. “First half, second half, you know, Quintero drops into the midfield a lot. And one of the things that we went over in training was either Michael or Jalil were going to have to drop into that midfield and track him. And at times, you know, not necessarily go through at the back, but he was going to have one of them, we're going to have to step in and deal with him so that he could not turn and eventually pick us apart. And I think that the two of them, and ultimately the back four and the two midfielders, did extremely well and dealing with what the coaching staff told us early in the week.”

But when the Loons threatened, Cropper came up aces.

Three minutes after Minnesota pulled level, Cropper came up with a big save as Francisco Calvo had headed a corner kick service goalward. Cropper popped it up and off the crossbar’s corner, denying them.

He came up with big stops late, too, after the Revs had taken a 2-1 lead, and Friedel made two defensive-minded substitutions. In the 83rd, Miguel Ibarra had flicked a chance goalward, but Cropper corralled it easily.

And a minute or so late, Cropper had to charge off his line to thwart the Loons.

“Personally, I think (coming off the line) kind of a gut instinct,” he explained. “You know, one of the conversations that I had with Ruben (Garcia, the Revs goalkeeping coach), and one of the conversations that I had with Brad before the game, were to trust my instincts. You know, whether it was on my distribution, whether it’s on the decision to come out, whether it was on decision to catch or parry, to do the simple things.

“And I think today, I trusted myself, you know, in the past, when you don't play games for a very long time, you sometimes tend to second-guess yourself. I think today, I just went out there and I trusted my ability. I trusted everything that I've worked on the last, you know, year and a bit since obviously the 2017 season, and it panned out for me, and I can help to continue that down the road.”

“Cody, in the last two or three weeks, is training very, very well — better than we've seen him train since we've been at the club,” Friedel said after the match. “We've been averaging two goals a game against, and I made a change.”

Suffice it to say, the change worked incredibly well. And now that he has stepped back into the role, it’s not one he wants to give up too freely.