The Music Files-How the Godfather of Soul, A White Irish Politician and a PBS Station Saved Boston

The Boston Globe tonight is reporting that former Boston Mayor Kevin White has passed away. We don't normally talk politics or about anything that doesn't have anything to do with music or soccer here but bear with us the connection to one of those is coming.  Growing up in this city I've always had an admiration for the former Mayor after hearing stories from my father and his friends who worked for him and knew him well.  The one that has always stuck with me however is what happened the night after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.

Welcome Our Newest Addition...

Chin Straps not required.

It's been an interesting year getting TDIF up and running and doing whatever the hell it is we do here. I've decided that it's time to bring in another writer to the TDIF family.

I'd like you all to welcome Scott McCullough to TDIF.  Scott is opinionated and a loud mouth just like myself and as you've come to expect from TDIF, but he also brings a much better technical knowledge of the game and better insight into on the field antics than I will ever be able to do.  You may recognize Scott's writing from the comments on many of our articles where he has in fact pretty much written his own article on the subject and it is usually more well written than the article itself.

Scott has been a Revs fan since day one in 1996, initially having his interest in the pro game spawned by the USMNT in the 1994 World Cup.  His first Revs game was against DC and he has been a regular at games ever since, although as he admits "until recently due to the shoddy organization" (ya he'll fit right in here).  Scott is a long time (2001) fellow Rev Army member, and I would be remiss if I didn't mention that his favorite Rev of all time was Joe Max Moore. Keep an eye out for articles from Scott within the next few weeks.

Jamal Gay To Revs?

Trinidad and Tobagon news site Newsday is reporting that striker Jamal Gay may be on his way to the New England Revolution. Gay, a 21 year old from Trinidad & Tobago started his career with a club that many fans unfortunately are familiar with Joe Public.  He had a short stint at Rot-Wiess Oberhausn as well as a loan at Turkish second division side Dardanel Spor A.Ş. and most recently was with Trinidad and Tobagon side Caledonia AIA. His senior career has 24 appearances and 16 goals,his U-20 national career has 5 goals in 11 appearances and his senior national career has 3 goals in 8 appearances.

Quality Of Life: Offseason 2012

With New England Revolution pre-season starting Monday, it is officially time for our Off-season 2012 Revolution Quality of Life Index. Since it's a new season we'll go over how the QoL works for those who forgot or the uninitiated.  If you are from the Boston area and read the Weekly Dig you will realize that I am 100% stealing this idea from them, so  don't tell me about how I am unoriginal and stealing and idea... I know.  Secondly, all numbers are absolutely arbitrary and decided by me and solely me. The QoL works on a PLUS/MINUS system and the total is at the bottom along with a link to the last QoL.


Front Office "Restructuring"




So with many clamoring for sweeping changes to be made in the Front Office after years of on and off the field decline, those sweeping changes happened.... well at least in the minds of Krafty JonBob... not so much to everyone else.

Yes they actually promoted Brian Bilello and Mike Burns.  I'm willing to give Bilello a little more wiggle room and time now that he has assumed the role that absentee club President Sunil Gulati once held.  However it's no secret that I do not care for Mike Burns and the fact that he now has more control over this team, a team that's fallen behind during his tenure, scares the shit out of me.  I still don't understand why the Krafts want to reward failure... not to savvy if you ask me.  MINUS 25

Super-duper-draft....

So why is it the "SUPERDRAFT" and not just the draft?  What's so super about it? And why do people insist on it's importance? It's not that important anymore folks... It's great for depth and that's about it... of course there are few great picks every year but it can be a crap shoot, we see highly ranked players flounder and diamonds in the rough come from the bottom... Ok rant over...

Despite my feelings of the draft it appears that Heaps & Co. did pretty well for themselves by selecting Kelyn Rowe and Tyler Polak.

Pure F******Style

 

This just needed to be shared... (via KCKRS)

Revolution Sign Columbians Lozano, Cardenas

Cardenas, Lozano

The New England Revolution have announced a pair of Colombian signings from club America de Cali, 23 year old midfielder/forward Fernando Cardenas, and 27 year old defender John (Jhon) Lozano. 

At this time Cardenas appears to be more of a creative player than goal scorer, in 82 appearances he has scored just 6 goals and had 5 assists. Cardenas has played for Deportivo Pereira, Once Caldas, Deportes Tolima and America de Cali before landing with the Revolution.

New England Revolution Hire Jay Miller, Nick Downing

Today the Revolution announced the addition of Jay Miller to the technical staff. Miller takes the long awaited and anticipated hot seat of assistant to Jay Heaps.

Miller brings more than 30 years of soccer experience to the coaching staff, having worked for U.S. Soccer youth national teams, scout for the USMNT and at the college level.  Most recently Miller has been working for the  U.S. State Department as and envoy traveling on behalf of the U.S. and U.S. Soccer. Also of note is Miller has worked overseeing and coaching coaches, perhaps his appointment is not only for what he brings to the players/team but what he specifically brings to Heaps

The move to hire Miller, is an outside the box move and interesting one as well.  Miller has a lot of youth and talent development experience.  Miller's resume my indicate a shift to a youth movement under the new leadership of Heaps.  Miller has not worked in top flight soccer yet with his vast involvement in soccer we hope he brings many connections to assist in player scouting and acquisition.  The question we do ask is whether Sunil Gulati had any say in this move.  We've heard Gulati may have been more influential than previously thought, with the deck chair reshuffling of the FO we thought his influence was gone but maybe not.

MLS Fruits of Their Labor Ranking

We got artsy with it... (c. Rivera)

Actions speak louder than words.

Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

Based on our recent post amount the comings and goings of MLS teams so far this off-season we've come up with a ranking system to determine an successful effort ranking.  The first number is the position the team finished during the 2011 season.  The second number is players in divided by players out.  It's simple and doesn't take anything else into account other than results based on work needed to be done.

What are the Revs Doing vs. League

Everyday I'm shuffling... Rosters...

In the interest of being fair and honest about the New England Revolution's off-season moves we have compiled all MLS team moves for comparison.  Questions and claims are made that the Revs aren't doing enough and aren't doing what they should be compared to other teams, well here are the stats laid out for you to make your own decision.  We have compiled all players officially in/out since MLS cup until today.  Players that have been waived but to which a club still retains rights are counted as out.  Re-entry Draft selections are only considered in if they have signed, Homegrown Players also count as 'in'. 16 Internationals have been signed, 2 of which who were on loan last season. Please do not hesitate to email us if we have overlooked something.


The following stats exclude Montreal:
IN:
Average: 2.2
Revs: 1
Most In: Philadelphia Union
Least In: Colorado Rapids, Real Salt Lake

OUT:
Average: 6.9
Revs: 10
Most Out: New England Revolution, DC United, Vancouver Whitecaps
Least Out: LA Galaxy

Two Weeks From Camp... What Are The Revolution Waiting For?

The New England Revolution are just about 2 weeks away from opening their preseason camp and there are still a lot of questions and things that need to be done. One of the biggest questions is the assistant coach situation.

After the hiring of Jay Heaps as head coach, a lot of talk was around how an experienced assistant would be hired in the coming weeks. It is more than a few weeks on and there has been no mention of how that process is progressing. There are many major moves and decisions to be made in the upcoming weeks, who is Heaps seeking advice from and bouncing ideas off of? Draft picks need to be chosen and a team that has little more than depth players at this point needs to sign 15 or so more players and many of them need to be impact players or starters at minimum.