In a world that demands instant gratification, I do my best to preach patience. Calm down, relax, take a deep breath, and try to put everything in context. Not only will it save you from a debilitating ulcer, it will keep the rest of us from having to listen to the over-excited rantings of irrational people with nothing better to do than draw attention to themselves by moaning loudly that the sky is falling.


So it's good news that patience was rewarded today with the passing of the Dyanmo's stadium plan by the city of Houston; the intent all along was to build a proper place for the club to play after they were relocated by the league from San Jose. It certainly took longer than some would have liked, but nonetheless the deal is done.


But patience can't last forever, no matter how prudent it might be to maintain. There's a line, which when crossed, throws all of that reasoned thinking out of the window. It's never clear exactly where the line might be, and personal opinion on the issue in question creates varying assessments; for some, the time to panic comes much earlier than for others.


Even as I allow for a bit of varying opinion on when it's time to scream "FIRE!", I can't find any reason not to do so in the case of the New England Revolution and their non-existent search for a new place to call home. Not only is Gillette the wrong type of stadium with the wrong type of surface and the unfortunate ability to give us an exact measurement of how many yards a shot is taken away from goal, it's in the wrong location. Foxborough is fine for an NFL team that draws from around the region and has a long history in the area, but it's a terrible place for a soccer team that should be leveraging Boston and its ethnic communities for their base of support.


Most troubling for MLS and Revs fans is the regular statements by the Revolution management that they're fine where they are (HT to SF at TOR). From a business perspective, their stance is imminently defensible; the cost of building a new stadium will hardly be offset by an possible bump in attendance, and the club would be forced to refocus their marketing strategy, at a cost, if the building went up in a different locale.


But Kraft and those running the Revolution are missing the point. They give lip service to the benefits of an urban setting with all of the accompanying positives (public transit, new potential fans, etc.), but fail to appreciate just how debilitating to the image of the league their continued second-citizen status at Gillette Stadium might actually be. Or if they do understand, they simply don't care.


I'm assessing this situation from afar, so perhaps I'm being harsh Revs management by assuming they aren't being proactive. For all we know, they could be in regular meetings with various urban localities all around the city of Boston. But as with DC United, the lack of transparency in the process (not that there should be any, I'm simply identifying it) means the fans are left to draw their own conclusions. Based on the statements of Brian Bilello in the piece linked above, what conclusion can we draw other than that the New England Revolution will be playing in a mostly empty American football stadium on plastic grass and yard lines until the end of time?


Excuse the hyperbole. The patience is running thin.


What we know is that the convoluted and conflicted interests of the Krafts, US Soccer through Sunil Gulati, and Major League Soccer combined with the "OG" nature of Kraft's involvement in the league makes any action on the part of New York extremely unlikely. The Revs could literally be untouchable, exempted from MLS' fairly intense drive to put their teams in stadiums that maximize atmosphere, improve the television broadcasts, and give the game more credibility.


If so, that's truly sad.