Preseason Look: New England Revolution

The New England Revs mark my halfway completion point for the Eastern Conference. Perhaps it is a fitting spot for them, right there in the middle. Tucked away. A team everyone wants to play home, but never wants to go play away (because of the surface and atmosphere, not the team).

New England has a bit of a Frankenstein roster build so far. I see recent pick-ups like Edgar Castillo (32), Cristian Penilla (27), Luis Caicedo (22), and Juan Fernando Caicedo (29) and think that they are going for it. Unfortunately, this is sort of what the Revs do each season. Reach.

The "core" of the team is basically the same as it has been since 2014 - Fagundez, Caldwell, Farrell, Bunbury and Agudelo. Two more core longtimers that could have still been with the team were it not for extreme measures. Poor Chris Tierney had to retire to get out and Lee Nguyen had to transform into a bad dude to live free. Fine players, but you are telling me that they haven't found enough players in 5, now going on 6 seasons, to replace these guys in the 18?


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Rating	Name	Position	FM19	FIFA	WS
71	Cristian Penilla	Left Winger	70	72	71
70	Edgar Castillo	Left-Back	71	70	70
70	Diego Fagúndez	Left Winger	64	73	70
70	Michael Mancienne	Centre-Back	70	70	68
69	Juan Fernando Caicedo	Centre-Forward	71	69
69	Andrew Farrell	Right-Back	66	69	69
69	Juan Agudelo	Centre-Forward	69	69	67
68	Teal Bunbury	Centre-Forward	66	70	68
67	Matt Turner	Goalkeeper	66	69	67
67	Antonio Delamea	Centre-Back	67	68	67
67	Wilfried Zahibo	Central Midfield	65	70	67
67	Luis Caicedo	Defensive Midfield	66	67	68
67	Scott Caldwell	Central Midfield	67	68	65
66	Jalil Anibaba	Centre-Back	63	68	66
65	Brad Knighton	Goalkeeper	65	65	69
65	Cody Cropper	Goalkeeper	65	65	64
64	Gabriel Somi	Left-Back	64	63	66
61	Brandon Bye	Right-Back	59	61	65
61	Zachary Herivaux	Central Midfield	61	58	62
59	Brian Wright	Centre-Forward	58	59	63
54	Isaac Angking	Attacking Midfield	54	54	63
0	Nicolas Firmino	Midfielder
0	DeJuan Jones	Forward
0	Tajon Buchanan	Forward
0	Justin Rennicks	Centre-Forward

The frustrating thing about the Revs is that they fish, fish, fish for players outside this average core group when they'd almost just be better off finding similar ones to the 2014 group I just listed. New England is a tough sell for good players. The weather is chilly, the surface sucks, it's in a cavernous NFL stadium, attendance for games range from 2k friends and family to 16k on a nice summer Saturday night.

The Revs are sitting on a roster of 25 players and 14 of them just arrived last year.


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		Player Ratings (avg)		TransferMarkt Value (000)
	Team	Starters	Bench	Starters	Bench
1	ATL	70.9	65.9	$ 40,695	$ 4,703
2	NYR	69.7	64.9	$ 15,653	$ 2,903
3	CLB	69.3	66.2	$ 19,125	$ 3,240
4	NER	68.7	64.5	$ 10,293	$ 3,965
5	PHI	68.0	56.1	$ 8,015	$ 4,106
6	FCC	67.5	64.7	$ 8,538	$ 3,398

Despite the feeling I have about this team (they stink), they do have a fairly decent starting XI so far, and by that I mean - strong enough to get them the same finish as last year. 6th or 7th place in the East.