Caleb Porter speaks with Zolak and Bertrand on 98.5 The SportsHub

FOXBOROUGH, MA – New England Revolution head coach Caleb Porter spoke with Zolak and Bertrand of 98.5 The Sports Hub, Boston’s home for sports, to discuss topics regarding the team.

Below is the complete transcript, along with specific media attached pertaining specifically to each question.

Question 1: Record now moves to 2-9-1 on the year, obviously not where you want to be, is that record on-par with what you have for talent on your roster, when you look at your team, is this a 2-9-1 team or is it a team that’s under-achieving.

Answer 1: “Yeah, I mean good question, no I don’t think when you look at the roster, when it’s healthy, it’s a 2-9-1 team. Umm. You know for sure. So, we’re finally getting healthy. So, I think it’ll be important to kind of judge, now the record, based on our health. We’ve got Dylan Borrero, one of our best players who’s finally back. Brandon Bye getting close to being back. DeJuan Jones is our #1 left back, he’s been out for two months… Umm, you know, obviously we’ve had to change goalkeepers, that’s not ideal. We’ve had to change center backs, that’s not ideal… But I, you know, no, 2-9-1, no, this roster now moving forward, umm, and I do think we’ve had…. You know, people want to hear it. We’ve had some bad luck 2 red cards. So those two games are difficult to win. A game where you’re down a man, you know, it’s not like you put a guy in a penalty box for 2 minutes, you’re down a man the entire game. We’ve had five penalty kicks. You know, in our sport, very low scoring sport, a penalty kick, It’s a huge moment. We’ve had five of those against us and two red cards and we’ve had no red cards for us and no penalties for us. So, you know, we’re not, we’re not getting, you know, much luck. But I do believe you make your own luck. And you know, we’re going to, we’re going to make our own luck moving forward. We have an opportunity to make this right and this team is united, we’re together, they’re fighting, and they are growing…. it’s just, the last games tough because we gave up a red card 13 minutes in there’s not very many teams in the world ever that have won a game playing 78 minutes down a man.”

I asked Caleb Porter what Dave Romney would have to do in order to return to the #NERevs starting XI after failing to receive a start in more than a month. Here is my back and forth with the head coach pic.twitter.com/7dBTfKwQgD

— Sam Minton (@Sam_Minton22) May 19, 2024

Question 2: Now you talk about being together and we’ll go back really quick here to Saturday. There was some news over the weekend regarding your press conference… There was a question by The Blazing Musket, a fantastic name by the way for an organization or paper, asking about Dave Romney and playing… What problem did you have with the question and the way it was posed to you?

Answer 2: “I answered it right? So, you know, people can ask me whatever they want to ask… I thought it was a weird question at the time. We had just played a game 78 minutes down a man… So how you evaluate and talking about who should be in or not in after a game like that, so I answered the question…. Sometimes I may not like the question. I may not think it’s really at the right time for the question or it’s a weird question, but I answered it.”

Question 3: Can I ask you more broadly, are there any lineup changes that you have considered?  I know you’re talking about getting healthy and getting guys back that are now available to you, but other than that, have you, have you thought, or you know, strategized with your coaches about the possibility of any other lineup changes?

Answer 3: “I mean, we’ve made lineup changes all season long… Every player on this roster has been given an opportunity to play… David Romney started the first six games of the year…. And we didn’t win, you know, so I’ve given everybody an opportunity to play. You know, people might forget that because they don’t remember the last game even or three games ago or four games ago. Everybody on this roster has been given a chance to play. What I need to do now is not rotate my team every single game and I need to keep a steady hand and I need to keep continuity and I believe firmly that we’re playing the right lineup right now. And again, you know, part of why I was bothered is, how are you evaluating anything after we’re down a man for 78 minutes? You can’t, you know, so you might seem like, oh, we lost 3-0 again, and our defending wasn’t good, our goalkeeper wasn’t good. It’s not the case. You know, what’s the case is we’re down a man for 78 minutes and the guys actually fought really hard. The two center backs actually played really well under the circumstances of the day. Our goalkeeper made seven saves…. It’s just an impossible task… I know it’s common for people who want the people that aren’t in to be in, but they forget that those people were in and have been given those opportunities to play this year.”

Question 4: How is managing morale at this point? We always talk when teams aren’t winning the way they want to be… you’ve got to worry about the room and the group, what’s the state of the morale of the team right now?

Answer 4: “The morale is good. It’s good. You know, again, this isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve been in this league for 10 years… I’ve had many ups and downs and seasons, and I’ve had a lot of different locker rooms, and this is one of the best locker rooms I’ve had in 10 years. Doesn’t mean that guys aren’t going to be, you know, unhappy when you lose or are frustrated at times, but there’s no issues that are abnormal happening in our team right now. Zero, absolutely zero. We have we have a great relationship with great repour, the guys are together, the chemistry is good, but you due to some extent one guys to be, you know, a little bit ticked off when you’re losing. You were in an NFL locker room, right? So, you understand what that’s like if guys are not to some extent have unhappy something’s wrong it’d be the opposite actually. People reporting that the New England Revolution locker room is great right now, that would be something that would be a problem actually right now… I find it comical, some of the things I’ve seen…”

Question 5: It sounds like Carles Gil is upset right now… and has maybe been upset behind the scenes with players, coaches, etc… is that true?

Answer 5: “No. No. He’s upset that we lost the game. He’s upset we’re losing. Unhappy with the coaches? No. Not at all. Unhappy with the losing? Yes. Yes.”

More drama from Saturday night after the #NERevs lost to #DOOP:

-Team owner Jonathan Kraft was said to be looking for head coach Caleb Porter after the match Saturday. Porter is said to have avoided meeting with Jonathan. Unclear if they met today.

-Players and coaches were…

— Tommy Quinlan (@TommyQuinlan_IV) May 20, 2024

Question 6: There was a report over the weekend as well that there was an argument between some key players and the coaching staff… what’s that relationship like across the board?

Answer 6: “Completely false. Complete lie. Complete lie. That’s why you can’t read everything you hear.  I mean these days, it’s kind of a sad state in our country you can just literally say whatever you want to say, and people take it as gospel. It’s a complete lie. Complete lie.”

On this week's episode of Revolution All In, we take in a training session from the perspective of Dylan Borrero, as the winger was recently mic'd up as he neared his return from a year-long injury absence.

Full episode https://t.co/eNmRmYTkFf pic.twitter.com/H1WCB4PxeJ

— New England Revolution (@NERevolution) May 23, 2024

Question 7: So, looking ahead to Saturday, Home Match, New York City FC, you mentioned Dylan Borrero being available, what can we look for in this weekend’s match?

Answer 7: “you’re going to see what we would’ve shown last match if we were 11v11. We’re making progress, the team is improving, we’re united, the team’s fighting, and you know, we’re playing a really good team, so, it won’t be easy. They’ve won 6 out of the last 7 games. They’re one of the most talented teams in the league. They have one of the biggest budgets in the league. They’ve spent a ton of money on their roster… So, we’ve got to play well. We’ve got to make this right, and we have the opportunity to show that, obviously we can say it, but we’ve got to prove it and show it.”

Caleb Porter and the New England Revolution (2-1-9, 7 pts.) return home to Foxborough, Massachusetts to face Eastern Conference side Philadelphia Union (3-5-3, 14 pts.). The match will kick off at Gillette Stadium at 7:30 p.m. EST on Saturday, May 25th. For more MLS NEXT Pro content, you can find it on MLS Season Pass on the Apple TV app.

(Editor’s Note:  For more of Burt Granofsky’s photos, click on the link)