Sweeney: Four takeaways from Saturday's Revolution win

FOXBOROUGH — Been a couple of weeks since I’ve done a few hearty takeaways following a Revolution game, so let’s him ‘em, shall we?

Start spreadin’ the goals

One of the things that I have harped on over time is that the Revolution have plenty of goal-scoring talent on its roster. I’ve been saying that since 2015. The only problem is, the Revs have had difficulty in either a) Pulling the trigger, or b) Finishing.

Not during this 11-game stretch where the opponent du jour can’t seem to crack the code on how to stop New England — and not like we’d give it to them anyway — though. For the second time in as many home games, the Revs had had four different goal scorers.

Against Vancouver a week and a half ago, it was Gustavo Bou, Diego Fagundez, Carles Gil, and Teal Bunbury. Saturday night against Orlando City, it was Bou, Cristian Penilla, Gil, and Fagundez.

Now we will preface these remarks by saying that scoring four goals in one soccer match is pretty rare. Before the Vancouver game, the Revs scored four against Sporting Kansas City, with Juan Fernando Caicedo scoring a brace; the other two were by Juan Agudelo and DeJuan Jones. And before that, the last time the Revolution scored four in one match was April 6 of last year — the week before we jumped on the beat here at BSJ.

And there were four different goal-scorers then, too: Bunbury, Andrew Farrell — keep kissing that Crayon Crest, Andrew! — Fagundez, and Wilfried Zahibo.

Would we like to keep seeing that? Absolutely. Add in the fact that in this 11-game run, the Revolution have out-scored opponents 23-9 and have cut the goal difference to -5 — well, it was down to -4, but then Tesho Akindele scored — we are in a rather unprecedented run of form.

Is Diego back?

You'll recall that we've been pointing toward Fagundez regaining his confidence after not doing anything of note offensively through the first half of the season, and on Saturday, he claimed second in club history all by his lonesome with his 75th-minute strike. It's his second goal in as many games at Gillette Stadium, the 52nd league goal of his career (53rd in both competitions), and it's leading some in The Fort to wonder ... is DF14 back?

You know, the Diego everyone loves. The Diego that makes the onion bag weep.

Right now, yes. In coming off the bench, Fagundez has now come up with a pair of big goals for the Revolution. And there's only 11 games remaining, so if you're thinking we're going to see 2013 Diego, I'm doubting it.

But if 2018 Diego wants to come back, we wouldn't have a problem with it.

Six points separate first to seventh in the East

The fact that Philadelphia, who entered and exited the weekend on 39 points, has only a six-point advantage over New England (33 points).. who would have thought that as June opened? Remember that the Revs were 11th in the Eastern Conference heading to Los Angeles. The fact they’ve fought tooth and nail to get up to where they are now — and for about an hour, they were in sixth Saturday night — is still really mind-boggling, to be honest.

And folks, tip your caps Montreal’s way this morning. L’Impact — sitting sixth, tied on 33 points with the Revs but ahead due to the wins tiebreaker — hosted Philadelphia and put a four-spot up on the Union Saturday night.

That came off a short turnaround: Montreal played York 9 and won, 1-0, on Wednesday to advance to the Canadian Championship semifinals, and put together that kind of performance Saturday. C’est magnifique, monsieurs.

With only six points separating, that means that anything can happen. Expect a ton of shuffling with 11 games to play, and I don’t think Montreal holds up to sixth for long: L’Impact play Colorado next Saturday, but then will have two games in the Canadian tourney against Cavalry sandwiched around a trip to Chicago. They also host FC Dallas, and then have to go to Toronto. That series against Calvary will be tremendous for Montreal: what type of lineup will Remi Garde put out against the CPL entrant?

Add in that Montreal is without Ignacio Piatti … seriously, tip your hat.

That locker room is looking forward to Saturday

When you have an 11-game unbeaten streak and your toughest test to date coming to Gillette Stadium next weekend, you bet your bottom dollar the Revolution are looking forward to it.

I spoke with Andrew Farrell afterward, and he told me there will be some serious film-watching — he said he had watched LAFC and Atlanta United from Friday night in its entirety — in the coming days. We’ll be watching film, too, as always.

And this may get me ex-communicated — but I think that if the Revs come away with a draw, everyone should be happy with that. LAFC is the best damn team in the league, have plenty of scoring punch — in all seriousness, this could be a humbling defeat.

But this is also a Revolution defense that carried a 261-minute scoreless streak into the last quarter of an hour. This is a Revolution defense that has only conceded a handful of goals in almost three months.

And this stretch is a huge test for New England: LAFC next weekend, at Seattle (2nd in the West), and then at the Red Bulls (5th in the East). These next three weeks will see if the Revolution play soccer late into October.