Dave Romney has always had a connection to New England

Jan 13, 2023 - 2:00 PM

Dave Romney is a California boy through and through but the center back has always found himself being pulled to the New England Revolution. It only makes sense that he is now on the team.

The Revs acquired Romney via a trade with Nashville SC this offseason. The center back will look to compete for a starting position in 2023 with New England having a decently deep back line featuring Andrew Farrell and Henry Kessler. The 29-year-old recognized that there will be a competition for minutes heading into the regular season.

“Yeah, I’m coming here to play as many games as I can, help us win trophies, and I know [Andrew] Farrell’s been a mainstay here for 10 years, he’s got over 300 appearances for the club. [Henry] Kessler’s been great the last three years, Omar [Gonzalez] brings a wealth of experience, and then we’ve got a lot of solid young guys as well, Christian [Makoun], and other draft kids, so I’m just going to play the best I can and get as many minutes as I can and hopefully get as many shutouts as we can because I don’t know, I think we have a lot of attacking fire power so if we do our job at the back, I think we have a chance to be really good this year,” Romney said.

It can be quite challenging to adopt to a new team. Luckily for Romney, he will have plenty of familiar faces to help him out.

“Yeah, it’s great,” Romney said when asked about having some friends on the team. “Bobby Wood, we were club soccer teammates when we were sixth, seventh, and eighth graders and so just growing up in Irvine, Orange County together in southern California, it was unreal to see him, for us to get to play together again since we were playing I think we were really, really good friends in like eighth grade and then he got shipped off to Germany and we were all just like, ‘wow, Bobby’s the golden child and we’re just never going to see him again,’ so for us to get to be teammates again, it’s honestly surreal, and then I know [Matt] Polster, I know Ema [Boateng], Omar [Gonzalez], I got to play with him in LA, and so it’s been fun getting a reunion with a lot of friends and teammates I’ve had in the past.”

Even when at Nashville, Romney was keeping tabs on New England.

“I mean it’s been ups and downs,” Romney said when asked about his impression of the Revs after leaving Nashville. “2021 was such an amazing year, and I’ve always been watching this team closely because of Bruce [Arena] and then Ema [Boateng] was my roommate in LA for four years and so I was always just keepings tabs on him and stuff like that and he was telling me the vibes of the locker room and then I was close with Jalil [Anibaba] in Nashville and Teal [Bunbury] even last year, so I feel like I always had a little kind of connection here and kind of liked a lot of the players here and stuff like that. Even [Matt] Polster, we were in a national team camp together, so I would always watch them. I thought they were a solid team, played good soccer, and kind of had some breaks in 2021, and then unlucky last year, but yeah, I don’t know, I’m just happy to be here honestly.”

If New England is winning and Romney is playing well in 2023, Revolution fans will be more than happy.