The New England Revolution, who will welcome Lionel Messi and Inter Miami CF to a packed Gillette Stadium for this weekend’s Sunday Night Soccer presented by Continental Tire showcase, a tasty fixture rife with Audi MLS Cup Playoffs implications, are not your father’s New England Revolution (7 pm ET | Apple TV).
“Let's just say the club has evolved a great deal from the moment I walked through the doors until now,” Matt Turner told MLSsoccer.com this week. “I mean, the doors I'm walking through themselves are very different.”
The Revs’ star goalkeeper – who joined the club as an undrafted signing in 2016 before blossoming into an MLS Goalkeeper of the Year winner and two-time FIFA World Cup participant with the US men’s national team – is specifically alluding to the 68-acre, $35 million training facility that opened seven years ago near Gillette.
It’s proved a game-changer in terms of how New England prepare, develop and recruit players, along with significant other investments in medical staff, travel and the player care department, which assist both the athletes and their families with off-field logistics.
Yet the growth process underway at one of MLS’s founding sides runs deeper still.
"Never satisfied"
The Revs sit in second place in both the Eastern Conference and Supporters' Shield standings, two points ahead of Miami in the race for optimum playoff seeding.
If they're able to triumph over Miami on Sunday, New England would lock up the East's second spot and book their trip to the 2027 Concacaf Champions Cup, continuing the upward trajectory of a club searching for their first-ever MLS Cup presented by Audi title after a record five appearances without lifting the trophy.
They’ve won in a variety of ways this season, displaying collective tenacity and resilience while also blessed with individual talents like Turner, cultured Spanish playmaker Carles Gil and Israeli international striker Dor Turgeman, who can steal points single-handedly – and even with key figures like Designated Players Leo Campana and Jack Harrison extensively sidelined by injuries.
“Written on our walls here, we have a big message, [in] which we say we are never satisfied,” explained head coach Marko Mitrović to reporters earlier this month.
“We can have moments of happiness when things are right, or moments of sadness when things are wrong. Not connecting with just the outcome, winning or losing, there are other actions on a daily basis that we do. Sometimes we might not be the happiest or happy with something. But being satisfied puts you in 'sleepy mode,' so we don’t want to create a satisfied mindset.”
New England have won four straight matches and seven of their last nine, and their 18W-10L-4D record offers little hint of the fact that they’re led by a first-year coach who’s also at the helm of a senior first team for the first time in his career.
“For me, what matters is what kind of group we have, and how dedicated are the players and team and people around to any goal that we can put ahead of us and any objectives we have,” Mitrović said of his team in a Friday media availability. “We have people that have, it's like an organic dedication to do the right things, and that's something that I would really emphasize.”
Man manager
The Serbian carried MLS experience from a stint on Veljko Paunović’s staff with Chicago Fire FC from 2016-19. He’d developed further familiarity with the North American landscape over several years as a US youth national team coach, most prominently as the manager of the 2024 men’s Olympic team that advanced to the quarterfinals in France.
Yet few on the outside would have guessed his Revs project would have already advanced this far this fast.
“That's credit to the environment that Marko's created,” general manager Chris Tierney told MLSsoccer.com. “He's really set the standard of us controlling the controllables, and that's bringing a competitive attitude that's never giving up in games.
“These are all clichés that you hear quite often, but I think he's done a really good job of actually bringing them to life and reinforcing them every day in training – analyzing the games that we play, looking at the things we can do better, but looking at the commitment of the players and the vibe of the group, if you will. These things matter.”
Turner has particular praise for Mitrović’s communication techniques. He notes wryly that even a man-of-the-match performance could still be followed by a light airing-out when the squad analyzes the game footage later.
“I can't compliment him enough on his messaging, every single week, being so consistent,” said the ‘keeper, who’s worked with four previous coaching regimes in New England and many more across his career as a whole. “It really helps with leveling out the emotions of being a player, because you know that if you had a great game, there's a chance that you could be on the film sheet for something that you did wrong – just to balance you out, you know?
“He does a really great job of challenging players in different ways, and understanding how certain players receive communication compared to other players. And he reads the room very, very well.”
Youth revolution
Perhaps most impressively, Mitrović has tacked the Revs in a markedly youthful direction.
US youth internationals Brooklyn Raines, Ethan Kohler and Josh Wynder, all three age 21, arrived to stiffen the spine of the starting XI, and teenage phenom Peyton Miller has enjoyed a breakout season, the headliner of what the club hope will be a steady flow of homegrown talent from their academy.
It's a project that has already borne fruit, with Miller and Raines making their senior USMNT debuts together in September ahead of the pair being named in the top 10 of MLSSoccer.com's 22 Under 22 rankings, an annual list showcasing the league's best young talent.
“Another reason that really attracted us to Marko was he had such a good depth of knowledge about the US national team youth player pool,” explained Tierney. “You look at players that we've brought in that Marko had worked with previously, I can say to you quite honestly, a player like Ethan Kohler is one where I don't think there were many MLS teams even aware of Ethan Kohler, and Ethan Kohler comes to us on what I think now looks like quite a team-friendly deal, and has been one of our best performers.
“And all that's down to Marko having a personal relationship and a working relationship with a kid, and knowing what he's capable of.”
The Revs believe getting younger helps them compete on the pitch, while also offering economic opportunities on the transfer market, where they’ve made millions in sales over the past several years.
“If you're acquiring young assets,” noted Tierney, “then you always have the possibility, either one, to improve the players and the players stay in your team and continue to improve, and their performances get better over time. Or two, you move players on, which, we've been a club that's been willing to do that in the past.”
Then there are the more intangible elements.
After former boss Caleb Porter, a two-time MLS Cup winner with Portland and Columbus, proved unable to steer the Revs into the playoffs in his two seasons in charge, Tierney and his colleagues sought a successor who could reset the locker-room culture without overhauling a roster they felt could compete. The Revs’ infusion of kids has helped lift the day-to-day vibes, even with Mitrović’s pronounced emphasis on intensity.
“Honestly, it's been amazing,” said Turner. “Going to work every day is such a highlight. I look forward to walking through the doors. I know that I'm going to be challenged in some way, shape, or form, whether it's in the film room, whether it's in the gym, whether it's on the pitch, and then in turn, being around the younger guys, they just have such a great energy about them. It's hard not to smile when you're inside the walls of the training ground.
“This team in general just has a great togetherness.”
To an even brighter tomorrow
In the longer term, New England are eyeing an even more transformative development.
Slowly, methodically, the Revs are working through the extensive political and logistical processes of gaining final approvals on a new, soccer-specific riverside stadium of their own in Everett, Massachusetts.
“We're in a market that's very attractive to players,” said Tierney. “Selling Boston is never an issue for us, but I think having our own building in downtown Boston would be a complete game-changer, and we would certainly leverage that to take us to the next level, closer to being one of the elite clubs in MLS, which is what our ultimate goal is going to be.”
It’s a longstanding dream which could – emphasis on could – be built by the end of the decade, and would represent a watershed moment for both the club and the wider Boston soccer community. So while they’ve drawn larger and larger crowds out to Foxborough as fans buy into Mitrović’s project, an even brighter future floats tantalizingly in the distance.
“When these stadiums are in metro areas – you look in downtown Portland, you look in Burlington, Vermont – the fans show up, and we want to create connections with our fans that we already have, and continue to grow,” said Turner. “There's so many great little pockets of soccer around New England, but we want to be the flagship, and we want to put out a product on the field and in the stadium that everybody wants to come to and be a hot ticket in town.”
