New England Revolution
New England extended its winning streak to three in a row.
The Revolution defeated Charlotte FC 1-0 on Saturday, becoming the first away team to get a win at Bank of America Stadium in 2025 while simultaneously extending New England’s winning streak to three in a row.
Carles Gil, as he so often does, provided the difference in the game thanks to a 77th minute cross-turned-goal.
New England spent a majority of the night without the ball and on defense, but — as has increasingly become the case since the recent formation change — rarely looked to be in true jeopardy.
Caleb Porter’s castle held firm once again, and his team now has two road wins in its last three games.
Here are a few takeaways:
The defensive shutout streak goes on.
Since moving to a 3-4-1-2 for the road game against Atlanta on April 12, the Revolution have not allowed a goal. Not surprisingly, this has also coincided with the three-game winning streak that has turned around New England’s season (and possibly saved Porter’s job). Given the run of success, it made sense that Porter picked an identical Starting XI to last week’s win over New York City FC.
Explaining exactly why the new formation has proven effective is simple at a certain level: The Revolution have added one more defender into the equation (center-back Tanner Beason), and it has injected a measure of stability. It’s not that Beason is some game-changing talent as an individual, but as part of a collective, his no-nonsense defending style and direct passing has been an ideal recalibration.
The switch has also allowed outside backs Ilay Feingold and Peyton Miller to get farther forward as wing-backs. Miller in particular looked dynamic at times against Charlotte, accounting for arguably the team’s most dangerous attacks in the first half.
Saturday showcased how the three-back system allows Porter’s team to sit back defensively and actually feel comfortable. Aware that they would be on the backfoot more often against Charlotte (who entered Saturday as the top team in the Eastern Conference), New England employed the defensive tactic with confidence.
There was, however, one major exception to this strategy.
Wilfried Zaha was almost an uncontainable problem.
Former Premier League standout Wilfried Zaha, who is in Charlotte on loan from Turkish club Galatasaray for the 2025 MLS season, was the most dangerous man on the field on Saturday.
Zaha, 32, showed he remains dynamic with the ball at his feet, dribbling by multiple New England defenders within seconds of the kickoff. He fizzed in an ominous cross through the center of the box in the opening minute, and loomed in attacking situations for the rest of the night, constantly threatening the Revolution’s shutout streak.
Yet thanks to a high work rate from New England’s defenders and midfielders — as well as a concerted concentration on fouling Zaha when he got going — the bend-but-don’t-break strategy worked.
Eventually, the referee handed a yellow card to Revolution center-back Brayan Ceballos for persistent fouling of Zaha, but the home team was unable to fully exploit the circumstances.
While it was far from a perfect performance, and Charlotte center forward Patrick Agyemang looked dangerous and might have scored on another night, the perpetually tight margins of MLS favored New England this time. The result was that the Revolution maintained another clean sheet.
Carles Gil remains the straw that stirs the drink for the Revolution.
As easy as it can be to simply look past the consistently remarkable performances of Gil — given that they are so frequent as to (potentially) be taken for granted — it’s undeniable that he remains New England’s most important player.
His goal might not show up on his career montage (it may have been more of a cross that Matt Polster simply let pass over his head), but it counted nonetheless.
What a finish from Carles Gil to put @NERevolution ahead! 💫
📺 #MLSSeasonPass or Apple TV+: https://t.co/CvAgEJjMME pic.twitter.com/VkFDpqA96T
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) April 27, 2025
It came almost 20 minutes after he deftly chipped a through ball in for Revolution forward Ignatius Ganago to turn and finish, only for the would-be goal to be ruled out due to the Cameroonian being in an offside position.
In both cases, Gil was central to the away team’s most threatening moves of the second half.
Interestingly, he did not lead the team in touches. Though he’s usually the team’s most involved player, Charlotte did well enough to limit his touches on the ball. Both Beason and fellow center-back Mamadou Fofana had the ball more than Gil, but that made sense in the context of the game: New England was defending more, and was therefore comfortable to pass it around the back.
Gil was still instrumental in the Revolution win, and looks to have developing chemistry with several players (Miller in particular).
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