Porter: Revs’ gritty win at Nashville “showed the hunger” to win
For only the third time during the MLS season, Caleb Porter’s weekly call with Zolak and Bertrand came on the heels of a Revolution win. The Revs’ 2-1 win at Nashville SC was a sign that the tide may be turning in Foxborough.
However, the win did not come easily. After taking a 2-0 lead behind goals from Carles Gil and Esmir Bajraktarević, the officials awarded two penalty kicks to Nashville in the second half. Thankfully, Revs goalkeeper Aljaž Ivačič answered the call on the first attempt, making the save to keep Nashville off the board. The second attempt slipped through, but a tenacious effort from the entire team helped see out the result.
“We haven’t gotten many breaks this year, but we’re due for a lot of things to go our way moving forward,” Porter said of the unlucky calls against his side. “That’s the way I look at it. We’re going to start getting some penalties, we’re going to start getting some red cards [to the opponent], hopefully, balls are going to start to bounce our way. We haven’t gotten any of that.
“But I love that this last game, we took control of our own destiny,” Porter said of road win in Tennessee. “We weren’t a victim when those things happened. We found a way to win the game regardless and I think that’s the mindset you need to have, it’s to make your own luck.”
Ivačič’s penalty save highlighted a grueling defensive effort that saw the Revolution block 14 of Nashville’s shot attempts, a single-game high for any MLS team this season. Adding to the mayhem, the Revs were forced to battle through an eye-popping 11 minutes of stoppage time to claim all three points.
“Across the board, we had guys making what I call ‘winning plays’,” Porter said. “A lot of them are little moments that maybe no one sees. That [penalty save] was big one that everybody sees, but there were a lot of other little moments, even late in the game, where we blocked shots off our chest or our face, put our body on the line to preserve the win.
“I think that shows the hunger in that game, to win the game. For me, those are routine. They’re little moments that are massive to win games, but they should be routine. Winning teams make those plays.”
For weeks, Porter had been promising the midday crew that better results would follow as the team inches closer and closer toward meeting his vision. Finally, he has a result to show for it.
“I felt it’s been turning, really, the last three, four weeks,” Porter said. “We didn’t get the result to show for it. Obviously, we get it this time around, but I knew it was coming. The key thing with that is when your team gets rewarded with a result after playing well, now the confidence goes up, now the training environment is even better this week.”
New England opens a two-game homestand this Saturday, when the Revolution host the New York Red Bulls for a 7:30 p.m. kickoff in Foxborough. The match airs on MLS Season Pass on the Apple TV app. Listen live on 98.5 The Sports Hub with Brad Feldman and Charlie Davies in the booth.
“We have an opportunity now with two home games to get on a run, but we have to fight just as hard in this game,” Porter said. “We’re still in a massive hole. We have to take it week by week. It’s going to take every game, the same fight we had in the last game, to dig ourselves out of this hole.”
