LOS ANGELES—Call it the Zen of Jermaine.

Using a combination of inspiration, work ethic, skill, and the occasional hard tackle—on both opponents and teammates—Jermaine Jones has helped transform the New England Revolution from a promising young squad to a dominant club on the cusp of a league title.

Since Jones, a veteran of the Bundesliga, UEFA Champions League, and the 2014 World Cup, joined the Revolution in late August, the club went 8-1-1 in the regular season and then did not lose in four playoff games to advance to Sunday’s MLS Cup against the Los Angeles Galaxy in Carson, Calif.

Make no mistake, the Revolution were a good team before Jones, 33, signed on, but the Frankfurt, Germany, native filled both a gaping hole in defensive midfield and provided a young team with badly needed leadership that has made him arguably the greatest mid-season acquisition in MLS history.

American Soccer Now spoke with several Revolution players about Jones’ impact on the club—both on the field and off.

“With Jermaine, you can see what’s occurred on the field since he joined,” said Revolution goalkeeper Bobby Shuttleworth. “The one thing he brings is instant respect and leadership to our locker room. He doesn’t really try so I don’t think he knows how important it’s been for us. But he’s just fit in so perfectly for us. He didn’t come in and try to say he was better than us because of what he’s already done in his career. But I don’t think he had to."

Jones was born and raised in Germany, the son of an American serviceman, and came to New England with 15 seasons of European soccer under his belt—including several runs in the Champions League and Europa Cup. That a player with his pedigree instantly treated his new teammates as equals has served to inspire the Revolution.

“He walks into the locker room and everybody knows what he’s accomplished and they also know that if they’re not working hard, he’s gonna say something and nobody wants that,” said Shuttleworth, 27. “But the thing is, he’s got this hard reputation but he is actually the nicest guy.”

As fiery and passionate as he is on the field, teammates say he isn’t a rah-rah leader off it.

“He’s not a guy that needs to be talking all the time to be heard. Just his presence alone demands respect and brings out the best in the people he’s around,” said rookie Patrick Mullins, 22. “He has a calmness about him that exudes confidence, which is what you want in your locker room.”

The Revolution had talent before Jones arrived. But much of it, like Kelyn Rowe, Teal Bunbury, Scott Caldwell, Andrew Farrell, and Diego Fagundez, is closer to 20 than 30 and needed some tactical guidance.

“Jermaine has been everything we expected, on and off the field," said forward Charlie Davies, at 28 a grizzled veteran by the Revs’ 2014 standards. "The record kind of speaks for itself since he joined us. But what’s great off the field, what he brings is an experience, knowing how to communicate to a guy what he should be doing, where he should be on the field. He raises the level of practice, the level of training and the intensity is always high.

"It’s great to have a guy who has done so well in the Champions League and scored big goals in a World Cup. Overall it makes us that much better. He makes us feel we can accomplish anything.”

And on the field he’s been nearly perfect, doing the grunt work to free up Lee Nguyen to create while making timely contributions going forward. That was the formula Jones used in the crucial road win over the Red Bulls in the first leg of the Eastern Conference finals when he scored a goal and registered an assist.

“He’s exactly the type of player we needed with that grit and muscle in midfield,” Nguyen added. “Obviously I saw a lot of him in the World Cup and the national team and I knew what we were going to get with Jermaine, but now you see everything he does for a team.

“He plugs the gap but gets on the ball and takes pressure off the person on the ball. He can distribute, play short combinations but spread the field as well. He’s big for us to push for the playoffs and a championship.”

While his new teammates talk about how nice he is, Jones also wasn’t afraid to flash his trademark aggressive play in practice.

"His first day of training we had this small scrimmage, 9-on-9 between the 18s. One of our stronger players, Dimitry Imbongo, knocks me down," Nguyen recalls. “Then you see Jermaine come in and knock him to ground. No one ever knocks Dimitry down, but Jermaine made it look easy. Imbongo, he’s a beast. He doesn’t get bullied much in training. That was the first time I’d seen someone knock Dimitry off the ball like that.

"I was like, ‘Wow.'"

Brooke Tunstall is an American Soccer Now contributing editor and ASN 100 panelist. You can follow him on Twitter. ASN’s Rob Kehoe contributed to this story.