“I think maybe we don’t deserve to be in the playoffs because I think we’re not a competitive team now.”
The New England Revolution were defeated 3-1 on Tuesday, effectively ending their MLS Cup Playoff chances.
New England is four points out of the final playoff position and will need luck combined with three straight wins if they want to have any chance of playing in the postseason. With the Revs losing against the Houston Dynamo, it’s hard to believe that will happen.
Revolution captain Carles Gil didn’t mince words after the match saying that maybe New England didn’t deserve to make the playoffs.
“Now it’s obviously very difficult,” Gil said about making the playoffs. “I don’t know if we win the [final] three games if it’s possible. We lost many, many games. [We had] many chances to try to be there. I think maybe we don’t deserve to be in the playoffs because I think we’re not a competitive team now. Me, the first one, of course. It’s difficult, a difficult moment for everyone.”
Gil might be onto something by saying that New England doesn’t deserve to make the playoffs. Head coach and sporting director Bruce Arena thought that the Revs played poorly in a crucial game on Tuesday night.
“We played poorly,” Arena said. “There’s no excuses. You can come up with a million of them, but we were outplayed on the evening. We looked like a tired team, but also a team that didn’t play together. And we played poorly, at 1-1 for about 70 minutes, it’s a miracle that we were in the game to be honest with you, so we have no excuses. We deserved to lose the game, and I’ve got to accept the responsibility for the performance of that team. It wasn’t good.”
Similar to Gil, Arena also said that the Revolution don’t have a great chance of making the playoffs.
“I don’t know what the probability of us qualifying for the playoffs would be. I don’t think it’s great,” Arena said. “We certainly got to try to win our last three games, but we tried to win tonight, we tried to win in New York, and we’ve come up short and we had a very poor homestand as well before this, so there’s no excuses. It was all there for us and we have not performed up to, I think, our expectations.”
For Revolution fans, the 2022 season will be a major letdown after the massive high of winning the Supporters’ Shield in 2021. Gil is right to claim that the side he captains might deserve to watch the postseason from the comfort of their homes after failing to show up when it mattered most.