Sweeney: Even though it was close, Revolution mature enough to see out the result on the road

Breathe, Revolution Colony. You can breathe now.

Yes, that was close. No, it should not have been as close as it was, given the way the defending fell asleep three times too much — and if I’m being truthful, I think the only defenders who did their jobs Saturday afternoon were Michael Mancienne and Andrew Farrell; Brandon Bye was quiet, with most of Seattle’s attacks going either up the middle, to no avail, or toward Edgar Castillo’s side. We addressed that in the Match Report.

And yes, VAR took away a precious goal which would have really made it hard for the host Sounders to come back — well, in theory.

But what do I want to discuss with you right now? The way the Revolution came back not once, but twice.

In short, it was how mature teams respond to adversity.

Quite frankly, would that have happened during the Brad Friedel Era? What about during the last two years of the Jay Heaps regime? More than likely not. When Seattle scored its opener two minutes in, it certainly put New England into the position of chasing the game — and one can make the argument that Castillo didn’t track Harry Shipp all the way into the box and help take some of the load of Jalil Anibaba on the left-hand side.

Yet the Revs players didn’t get down on themselves like they would have last year, or even this past May. They didn’t yield to the pressures that come with flying 3,000 miles — makes the whole thing about Aston Villa fans traveling all of 116 miles from Birmingham to North London in the Premier League earlier Saturday look rather cute, huh? — in this league. They kept their heads high. They kept playing. They kept trying to create.

And fair play to Seattle’s defending in the first 25 or so minutes Saturday afternoon. The Sounders marked well and kept Stefan Frei safe. They certainly had the Revolution flummoxed.

But they responded with Mancienne wheeling off the pile of players in the middle of the box and using his noggin to drive Carles Gil’s corner service home in the 27th minute, his first goal in a New England shirt and the sixth goal scored by the Revolution backline.

That goal gave them purpose. It gave them drive. It gave them the wherewithal to fight on.

Eight minutes later, Gustavo Bou, with similar off-the-ball movement from two weeks ago, gave The Boys In Blue a deserved lead. At that point, you smiled. You grinned.

Then, the defense reared its ugly head again. Failure to track Shipp again en route to Seattle’s equalizer. Nicolas Lodeiro having carte blanche to move practically unguarded into the attacking third before he scored the go-ahead goal.

And yes, giving up the lead, albeit on the road, is frustrating. The chance for three points was there, ripe for the plucking — if the defensive problems of old hadn’t crept back into the narrative for all of about 20 minutes; if they had gone on any longer, in certainly would have put a dent in the club’s playoff hopes, at least temporarily.

However, no one informed the offense of the perils of playing on the road. Gil used his head and forced a handle in the penalty area, and subsequently buried the peno. That leveled the match at 3-up, moved Gil to 9 goals and 10 assists on the season, and then Matt Turner stepped up to the proverbial plate and denied, and denied, and denied again, the Sounders access to the back of the net.

And not to be outdone, tip your hat toward Frei, who saved a second-half stoppage-time effort from Diego Fagundez at point-blank range. If DF14 puts that 2 feet in either direction, New England flies back to Boston with three points, 36 for the season — and for the time being, fifth place.

Instead, the Revs sit sixth — for a few hours, at least; maybe a week, if things went well in Bridgeview.

Next up is a date at the Red Bulls. They have LAFC Sunday night, and we’re pretty sure that the Revs fans motoring down to Harrison while holding their breath again, another valuable three points — or even one — at stake.