Lionel Messi delivered at Gillette Stadium

On Saturday night in Foxboro Lionel Messi took center stage as Inter Miami CF took on the New England Revolution. For the Revolution this was a chance to showcase themselves in front of a much larger crowd than normal but Messi as expected was the star of the show. For the 65,000 in attendance that wanted to catch a glimpse of one of the greatest athletes ever they got that and more as he scored twice and assisted another to legendary striker Luis Suarez.  As a Revs fan it was kind of a bittersweet night, seeing Messi is a once in a lifetime bucket list type event, Messi and Brady are my two favorite athletes ever and seeing Messi score twice in the same place I got to see Brady dominate for decades was pretty surreal.

However as a Revs fan it just left me wanting more, out of the team, and the ownership group and it had me feeling disappointed for Revs fans. I've been to numerous Revs games in my life and even I expected the crowd to be extremely pro Miami and while there was no denying the cheers when Messi scored I was impressed by how pro Revs the crowd was. The Revs struck first scoring in the first minutes of the game and Gillette erupted, but that was the only real cheer the team earned all night aside from a few good defensive stops on Messi later in the game.

My biggest takeaways from the game were that Revs fans and soccer in this area deserve more. The Revs need a real star and a real stadium, seeing Gillette packed out was awesome but it's just not something that's sustainable for a stadium that sized to be packed on a weekly basis for the Revolution. I know Carles Gil is one of the best players in the MLS when healthy but he's struggled of late and is nowhere close to the name that is needed to really propel soccer in this area.

I left the game knowing I had seen something incredible in Messi scoring twice but it really left me wanting more out of the Revolution because of how good the weekly experience could be for a soccer team in this area. Revs fans are out there and they're hungry for more, they expect more and they should.

The Revolution seemed to finally be building more momentum than usual the past few years with Bruce Arena being introduced as the head coach, Gil winning the MVP  in 2021 and the team putting a good product on the field on a weekly basis. However all that seems to have gone to waste in the last 12 months with the dismissal of Bruce Arena with still no real reasoning being given and the team floundering under new head coach Caleb Porter. As a Revs fan I'm still hopeful they can turn it around and hopefully spend some money to improve the roster but it's looking like it's going to be a long summer for Revolution fans.

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