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‘This is now my roster, my team’: Revolution coach Caleb Porter’s goal the same, the team’s first MLS Cup title
The revamped roster includes only three starters from last year’s season opener. Porter has replaced 19 players that started at least once last season. The average age has been reduced from 30 to 24.6 years.
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Coach Caleb Porter’s first season with the Revolution fell far short of expectations as the team finished second-to-last in the MLS standings. But Porter is not backing down from his aim of taking the Revolution to their first MLS Cup title.
“The goal is playoffs, the vision is win MLS Cup,” Porter said before the Revolution began preseason training in Bradenton, Fla. “Does it happen next year? The goal is, yes. The process is, it depends on how the journey goes. It took three years in Portland, two years in Columbus. I don’t know how this one’s going to be. But I can guarantee you this is now my roster, my team. I’ve picked these players, along with Curt [Onalfo, technical director], and we’re really happy with where we’re at.”
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The revamped roster includes only three starters from last year’s season opener. Porter has replaced 19 players that started at least once last season. The average age has been reduced from 30 to 24.6 years.
“For MLS, we didn’t have quite enough guys that were rangy, with pace, power — penetrating players, guys that can win duels,” Porter said. “In my game model we need guys that were a little bit more athletic across the board. To play the way I want to play you need guys that train hard. We wanted to get younger guys who could train every day, push and compete, and run and press, and play the way we need to play both sides of the ball. We wanted to get guys that were used to winning. A little bit more in their prime. After ‘21, the group kind of got mature and we felt it was important to end that cycle and reset the group a little bit and rebuild. We want to get guys with a chip on their shoulder to some extent, who want to prove things.”
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Newcomers include goalkeepers Alex Bono and Donovan Parisian; center backs Tanner Beason, Brayan Ceballos (Colombia), Mamadou Fofana (Mali), and and Wyatt Omsberg (Scarborough, Maine, and Dartmouth College); midfielders Luis Diaz (Costa Rica), Allan Oyirwoth (Uganda), and Jackson Yueill; and forwards Leonardo Campana (Ecuador) and Ignatius Ganago (Cameroon). Bono and Yueill have performed for the US national team.
The refresh is not complete. Giacomo Vrioni (nine goals), last year’s leading scorer, was traded to CF Montreal, opening a spot that could be filled with a high-profile Designated Player or two Under-22 DPs.
Porter, who won MLS Cups with the Portland Timbers (2015) and Columbus Crew (2020), talked title after being hired last January. But the Revolution struggled to a 9-21-4 (31 points) record, fourth-worst points per game (0.9) in their 29-year history.
“I could’ve come in last year and been cagey on the expectation,” Porter said. “That hurt me a little bit, by saying we’re going to win MLS Cup and we’ve got the roster. But that’s fine for me. I’m OK setting the vision. I’m not going to shy away from what I want to do.
“That’s just my way of doing it, because winning MLS Cup doesn’t happen by accident. You have to actually have a vision to do it. Outside looking in, we had good players. They’re still good players. They just weren’t the right fit for my game model, but you only know that when you come in and work with them.”
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Porter cites the Los Angeles Galaxy, who recovered from a 26th-place overall finish (8-14-12, 36 points) in 2023 to win the MLS Cup final last year under the coaching of Greg Vanney.
“They didn’t make the playoffs two out of the last three years, one of worst [teams] in the league,” Porter said. “They kept the coach and kept the continuity, and what his vision and idea was. They just added the right ingredients, added more talent. [Vanney] didn’t change what he did, he got a [Joseph] Paintsil and a [Gabriel] Pec and added some really valuable pieces, right back [Miki Yamane], center back [Maya Yoshida], and his vision came to life.
“And that gives me a lot of inspiration, because they went from worst to first. They didn’t panic, stayed on course, and they continued to believe in Greg because he had won an MLS Cup, has a good vision. They just needed to add talent, they needed to add his guys. And we did the same thing. We had a bad year and sometimes you get fired in years like that. Definitely my worst year and I own it. I’ve lost some confidence with the fans, and I’m going to rebuild that confidence one win at a time.”
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The Revolution have reached five MLS Cup finals and came close to a sixth when they were eliminated in the Eastern Conference final by the Porter-coached Crew in 2020.
“I took the job to win the first MLS Cup, so I’m not changing my goals,” Porter said. “I could have been quieter about my goals last year, yeah, maybe had people not expecting quite as much. But I just don’t believe in doing it that way. I think the reason you win it is because you set it immediately. Not because you pick a year and say, ‘Oh, we’re going to win it this year.’ No, you pick the vision and then the journey goes in the direction it goes.
“Sometimes you have forks in the road, sometimes it’s one, two years. So I could be cagey and say I’m not sure and this and that. I believe the reason I did win it the two years I did is because I approached it that way, because I always had the vision to do it. And eventually you get the right pieces to do it.”
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