Will Sands Turns a Trade Afterthought Into a Long-Term Revolution Deal

New England Revolution locked up defender Will Sands through the 2029-30 MLS season on June 9, betting long term on a player who barely saw the field for a year and a half. The 25-year-old has started all 14 games New England has played in 2026, splitting time at left back and right back for a team that sits fourth in the Eastern Conference at the FIFA World Cup break. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Two years ago the move looked like a footnote, a throw-in defender attached to $600,000 in allocation money for a starter who had reached a conference final. Now it reads as the clearest evidence yet that New England’s patience with young players is paying off in Foxborough.

The Trade That Looked Like an Afterthought

On July 31, 2024, Columbus Crew sent Sands and $600,000 in $600,000 in general allocation money changing hands to New England in exchange for left back DeJuan Jones. Jones was not a throw-in himself. The Lansing, Michigan native had made 142 appearances for the Revolution, helped the club to the Eastern Conference final in 2020 and its first Supporters’ Shield in 2021.

Sands arrived with a thinner résumé. He had signed as a Homegrown player with Columbus in January 2022 after his rights were traded from New York City FC, then won the 2023 MLS Cup with the Crew before a season-ending ACL tear against Charlotte FC that April wiped out the rest of that year.

“We are excited to welcome Will Sands, a talented left-footed defender with ample MLS experience, to New England,” sporting director Curt Onalfo said at the time. He called Sands’ arrival added cover at outside back as the club chased a playoff spot that season. New England missed the postseason anyway.

Two Years on the Fringe

The next year and a half did little to suggest a long-term contract was coming. Sands made 11 appearances across both clubs in 2024, then just 19 games for New England in 2025, only six of them starts. He ranked seventh in minutes played among Revolution defenders that season.

Then-head coach Caleb Porter preferred Peyton Miller at left back, and Sands mostly found the field when the younger player was hurt. Off the field, Sands built a different kind of profile, becoming the club’s ambassador to the New England Amputee Soccer Association in April 2025, a role Mitrović later cited when he called Sands an exceptional person as well as a player.

His three seasons at Georgetown before turning pro included a run to the 2019 NCAA College Cup title. His twin brother, James, plays the same position for New York City FC and is currently on loan at FC St. Pauli in Germany’s Bundesliga.

Why Is Will Sands Starting Every Game in 2026?

Marko Mitrović handed Sands the left back job as soon as he took over as head coach and never took it away. Sands has started all 14 games New England has played this season, shifting to right back when fellow defender Ilay Feingold was injured, while adding a goal, an assist and three clean sheets.

We talked about how we can unlock Will, that he first believe more in himself, but we have to show that we believe in him.

Mitrović said that last month, describing the conversations that convinced Sands to trust his own game. Along the way, Sands has taken a turn defending some of the league’s toughest attackers:

• Lionel Messi – part of the defensive effort that helped limit Inter Miami’s star forward
• Wilfried Zaha – the former Charlotte United States attacker was kept largely quiet
• Cavan Sullivan – Philadelphia’s teenage winger found little room to work

Sands scored his first career MLS goal on April 22 in a win at Atlanta United, a header off a corner exactly three years to the day after the ACL tear that ended his 2023 season. He completed 37 of 40 passes and won seven defensive duels that night. He also leads the Revolution in aerial duels won this season, with 50.

“A very reliable player,” Mitrović said of him. “You put him anywhere on the field and he’ll do his job.”

Three Seasons, One Trajectory

Sands’ career numbers tell the story of a player who went from afterthought to everyday starter almost overnight once he got consistent minutes.

Across those five seasons Sands has made 63 regular-season appearances with 41 starts, one goal and six assists. This year is the first time he has started every game his team has played.

New England’s Surprising Climb up the East

The Revolution enter the World Cup pause at 8-1-5 with 25 points, fourth in the Eastern Conference. That is a sharp reversal from where preseason forecasts had them.

Sports Illustrated’s preview flagged the loss of defender Brandon Bye as a step back for a team adding only a couple of young Americans to replace him. The season opener did not help the case. New England lost 4-1 at Nashville SC on February 21, an immediate echo of the back-to-back losing seasons that pushed the club to hire Mitrović in the first place.

What followed was a turnaround. New England won its first six home matches of the season, the first time that has happened in club history, and stretched its unbeaten run to seven games behind an 87th-minute winner from Carles Gil against Philadelphia.

Goals Are Coming from the Wrong Places

Not everything under the surface looks as clean as the standings suggest. Through the season’s first 10 games, New England scored 1.8 goals per match against an expected-goals rate closer to 1.2, a gap that analytics site American Soccer Analysis has tracked as one of the largest scoring overperformances in the league since it began collecting the data in 2013.

Entering the World Cup break, defenders and hybrid defensive players accounted for 36.4 percent of New England’s 22 goals, far above the roughly 10 percent share such players contribute leaguewide. Center forwards Leonardo Campana and Dor Turgeman have combined for just three. New England also takes the fewest shots per 90 minutes of any team in MLS.

Sands’ own goal against Atlanta fits that pattern more than it breaks it. A defender scoring is part of how this Revolution team is winning, not an exception to it.

A Designated Player Search and Turner’s Uncertain Future

New England is shopping for attacking reinforcement even as it locks up its defense. The club has been linked to a potential MLS return for winger Jack Harrison, who has played in the Premier League for Leeds United and Everton, as it looks to add a Designated Player before the summer window closes.

Goalkeeper Matt Turner’s situation adds another layer of uncertainty. His loan from Lyon runs out this summer while he is away with the U.S. men’s national team at the World Cup, and it is not yet settled whether he returns to Foxborough. “We are in conversations with them to try to find a deal that satisfies all parties,” chief soccer officer Chris Tierney told reporters about the three-way talks. “You have Lyon, you have us, and you have Matt, and I think the deal has to make sense for all three of those parties in order for it to work for us. So we are working diligently to make that happen.”

New England returns from the World Cup break with a two-game homestand starting July 22 against Toronto FC, a 7:30 p.m. kickoff at Gillette Stadium. Sands, so nearly a footnote in a 2024 trade, is now under contract to be there for four more years after this one.