Introducing, Revs Playoff Preview

Hello all, I am Ben (SuperRevsGooner for those of you with BigSoccer accounts). I'm introducing myself because now I will be popping in pretty often to subject you to my thoughts and opinions. Enjoy!

Now that that's out of the way, I've got a bit of a different playoff preview for you.

The winning gods are smiling on New England these days. What, with the Red Sox destroying the Rockies in Game 1 of the World Series, the Pats doing what they do best (making Vince Lombardi poo a little), and the Bruins...well, I don't watch hockey.

Point is, the Revs go into New York with a shadow on their shoulders. Not only did they go their last three games losing to Fire, Crew and drawing to Canada-eh, but they haven't ever won it all. Despite so many teams killing so much playoff fodder, we still haven't found a way to win it. We need October, God.

That's a bit of a disappointment, right? We are the guys who touted JMM and Demps and Twells and Noons and all those guys, and we couldn't find a way to win. And now the league is even more difficult; with the exception of the Crew, every single team in MLS has one or two decent players who can really change the course of the game, which wasn't true in all of those seasons we looked so good at the end of the year. MLS went from a crappy, third-rate league four years ago to a very strong second- to lower-first-rate league this year.

The Revs are going to really have to step it up in NY to get a win there, so they can come home and hopefully build some momentum before moving along in the bracket. It's going to be very tough to get a win against Chicago or D.C. if we don't have momentum, so its time for the boys to start building it.

Wells Thompson told me that the older guys on the team aren't too worried, that "they know it takes time to win the playoffs, they're not wasting any energy early on." Well, I disagree. They wasted a whole lot of energy and momentum on getting a DRAW against quite possibly the worst team MLS has ever fielded (I really do like TFC when they're not playing us, their first season just caught them wrong and they'll be dangerous next year). Its not a great thing to fly to Toronto to play in that stadium, mind you, but they really should have opened up more chances or at the very least hold a 2-nil advantage. It has been the Achilles heel of this team all season and last year's playoffs, and they really need to figure out how to fix that.

How, though? The older guys haven't played in a non-3-5-2 formation since Nicol came here, and it doesn't seem like we should start changing it all up, now. I say, 3-5-2 till the first goal, then Ginger can drop back to be an upper-center half and Dorman can drop back to CDM. Kind of like a 4-4-2, except with wingers and a perfectly useful CAM playing defensive.

Of course, I'm not Steve. If I was, I would be doing completely different things than blogging, like maybe kicking my own arse for signing Khano Smith. Or speaking English no one can understand.