FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Saturday night’s highly-anticipated clash with the LA Galaxy was a paragon of perseverance, a case study on resilience, a model of grit and determination.
Until it wasn’t.
For 90-plus minutes the New England Revolution did almost everything right; despite playing with 10 men for most of the match following the 23rd-minute ejection of Cristian Penilla, they were well on top of the visitors, taking a 2-1 lead into the late stages and threatening for a killer third goal.
But it all shockingly fell apart in stoppage time as Dave Romney and Chris Pontius scored just seconds apart to turn what would’ve been a character-building victory into a gut-punch loss, perhaps most heartbreakingly in front of a raucous crowd of more than 36,000.