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New England revs up
Posted: Friday June 16, 2000 05:28 PM
You take one look at the Major League Soccer standings as the season's halfway point nears and you figure something has to be wrong. They must be upside down. After all, three-time champion D.C. United is still in last place in the Eastern Division with the fewest number of points of any of the league's 12 teams. And the New England Revolution -- the same club that lost 20 games last season and has made the playoffs but once in four seasons -- are in first place. That can't be true, can it? Believe it. It is. The Revs, believe it or not, are tied with the Chicago Fire for the second most points in the league (25) on the strength of their 7-4-4 record. Credit Fernando Clavijo for the team's amazing turnaround. He has mixed a heavy dose of work ethic with a new positive attitude, some new fresh legs and some luck and guile thrown in as well. "I never look at the negative parts of those games, only the positive," said Clavijo, who has gone from worst to first after spending last season as an assistant coach with the then-woeful New York/New Jersey MetroStars. "I look at the positive things to correct things. "I think I have been able to bring out the best in the guys. My main concern is winning. I find a way to do it. We have been lucky on many occasions. I am fortunate I have someone up there looking out for me." Fueled by some astute deals by Sunil Gulati, managing director of Kraft Soccer, and Clavijo, the Revs have been reinvented for this season. In the off-season, Gulati acquired playmaking midfielder Mauricio Ramos from the Tampa Bay Mutiny for a player allocation and Wolde Harris from the Colorado Rapids for a pair of draft choices. It was business as usual for the first month of the season. After stumbling to a four-game winless streak (0-2-2) -- few people were concerned because New England was expected to lose -- the Revs have gone on a 7-2-2 roll, losing only to their 2000 nemesis -- the Colorado Rapids -- twice. Amazingly, the Reds have accomplished that without the help of a dominant striker. They've seen three proven goalscorers move on in the past seven months. Joe-Max Moore went to Everton. Giovanni Savarese signed with an Italian club. And Eduardo Hurtado, who was due for a decent season after an abysmal one last year, was so horrid on the field and troublesome off the field that he was sent packing back to his native Ecuador last month. The Revs still can add a player. They have a player allocation they can use for a striker. The name of Portuguese star Jorge Cadete has kept popping up. "We're playing as a team," Clavijo said. "That is more rewarding than anything else. I'd rather be on top than have a guy who scores 6-7-8 goals." Every game it seems another hero emerges, thanks to the work ethic, skill and some luck:
The Revs are an interesting mix. They score by committee, have a veteran midfield in playmaker Ramos, defensive-minded Leonel Alvarez and worker John Harkes, yet they boast the youngest defense in the league, barely averaging 24 years of age. Costa Rican defender Mauricio Wright, recently acquired from the San Jose Earthquakes (sort of a company transfer for Kraft Soccer), is the old man at 29, followed by a pair of 23-year-olds -- U.S. Olympic captain Dunseth and Joey Franchino, obtained in a special dispersal draft from the Los Angeles Galaxy -- and Rusty Pierce, who turns 21 on July 24. "That tells you the future of this team is in defense," Clavijo said. "I've always believed that defense wins championships... I didn't want to make quick fixes where I would have to go back next year." The last piece of the backline puzzle was Wright, who was acquired for two veteran defenders -- Dan Calichman and Mike Burns. "One of the biggest concerns I had was speed in the back," Clavijo said. "I wanted to get a central defender with experience. I always thought Mauricio Wright was a perfect player for the way I wanted to play. "Franchino landed in our laps. I saw him play in college at the University of Seattle when I coached the Seattle SeaDogs [Continental Indoor Soccer League]. I figured if I brought him to New England that I wasn't going to trade him. He's untouchable. He let me move Ted Chronopoulos into the midfield." The Revs drafted Pierce, a Project-40 player, in the second round of this year's SuperDraft. "Rusty is outstanding," Clavijo said. "I saw him in the combine. He's a pit bull as a defender. It's not easy to go by him. You have to try 15 times and the 15th time he'll still be on top of you. He is a young player who has a great desire to succeed." Dunseth, the lone holdover from last season's backline, was the Revs' first Project-40 player (1997). "Brian Dunseth, little by little has matured in his game," Clavijo said. "He makes a mistake every game. He's the future of the franchise. He knows it. He had to step up and he's done it." For someone who stresses the positive, Clavijo said that the most memorable moments of the season occurred after tough losses. The first was a 1-0 loss at the Mutiny on March 25. "We absolutely dominated the game," Clavijo said in an interview before the Mid-Michigan Bucks upset the Revs in a U.S. Open Cup match 1-0 on Wednesday. "We outshot them. It was at the beginning of the season. It would have brought some people down. I told the team to keep working hard. Jonathan Kraft, the owner of the team, told the players, 'I am proud to be the owner of this team.'" The second was a disastrous collapse as the Revs squandered a 3-1 lead at home as the Rapids struck three times in the final 11 minutes en route to a 4-3 loss on May 17. "Everybody said that we would lose 10 games in a row and we would never recover from it," Clavijo said. "We were able to put things behind us very quickly." Indeed they have. They are 4-1 since the Colorado collapse. Their next challenge comes on the road, where the Revs play their next five matches. That's where we could find out what the Revs are really made of. At the moment, Clavijo and the Revs have put the rest of the Eastern Division behind them. Michael Lewis covers soccer for the New York Daily News. His third book, Soccer For Dummies, was published this spring. To submit a question or comment to Michael Lewis, click here.
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