After two lengthy winless streaks earlier in 2015, it had seemed like the Revolution (13-12-8) had finally gotten their act together late in the regular season. Instead, New England heads into their final match on Sunday (5, CSN) at Yankee Stadium vs. NYCFC (10-16-7) carrying the burden of a new four-game winless streak (0-3-1). Yet again, the Revs had a chance to clinch a playoff spot on Saturday in their home finale vs. Montreal (14-13-6) but they choked in a 1-0 loss at Gillette Stadium that enabled the Impact to make the postseason for the first time in their franchise’s brief history. New England still isn’t in much danger of missing the playoffs since they are three points ahead of seventh-place Orlando City (12-13-8) with a goal-differential that is +8 better. It would take a monumental collapse-a blowout loss to NYCFC coupled with a lopsided win by Orlando at Philadelphia (9-17-7) on Saturday night. Still, the fact that it has come down to the last match for the Revolution to clinch a playoff bid is shocking given that a few weeks ago, they were legitimately in the hunt for a top-two seed in the Eastern Conference and a bye. The easiest thing for fans to point out about the Revolution this season versus last season is that they made no moves this summer in the transfer window while midfielder Jermaine Jones came aboard in 2014 and made an immediate impact that carried them all the way to the MLS Cup. On paper, this club still has plenty of potential and ability but it certainly hasn’t been apparent in their last four games where they have scored a combined two goals. Montreal shut them out for the second time in a month as New England lacked any creativity or confidence in going one-on-one after Ignacio Piatti scored the go-ahead goal for the Impact in the 55th minute. Gillette had the largest crowd ever for a Revolution regular season game (42,947) on Saturday and needless to say, their supporters deserved better than what they got on the field that night. Midfielder Scott Caldwell was frustrated after the latest setback. “We just know we have to go to New York and get a result. We want to get points there and really go into the postseason with a little bit of momentum. As poorly as the results have fallen for us in the past few weeks, we’re still together.” The crazy part is that the Revs could finish anywhere from No. 3 in the Eastern Conference to No. 6. The Red Bulls (17-10-6) wrapped up the No. 1 seed and DC United (15-12-6) will be ahead of them, but Columbus (14-11-8), Toronto (15-14-4) and Montreal are all within three points or less heading into what should be a wild final weekend of action in Major League Soccer.
Revolution completely collapsing at end of 2015 season
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