There are certainly aspects of life that are more significant than sport. Jay Heaps’ leadership of our team has sparked several visible improvements, though I’m sure Jay, like the rest of us, would prefer wins to praises for style. Of all the adversity that a head coach could face with drafts, international scouting, injuries, suspensions, on top of rebuilding his team, the death of a family member is not one that we fans anticipated before this season’s start. You can read more about how this affected the team from Julian Benbow at the Boston Globe. We send our thoughts and our condolences to Jay Heaps and his family.
Soccer is a team sport with a deeply embedded tradition of teams playing anyone who will line up against them. With international tournaments, leagues for clubs, club tournaments, and open tournaments teams seek opportunities to compete. Our Revs had an MLS game Saturday night and a US Open Cup game Tuesday night. We have to show better execution on defense, versus DC in MLS and in the US Open Cup, against supposedly weaker competition, we should expect a win, right? Let’s review how that worked out.
Last Saturday evening the New England Revolution went to Washington DC aware of their strengths and weaknesses. We recieved confirmation on all fronts and then some. Yep, defensive concentration still an issue for our Revs. The two first-half goals that United scored came from set pieces, a free kick and a corner kick that turned into a mess. And, yep, we can score. I love the way this team attacked to start the second half. Saer Sene got a clear look with the ball on his left foot after a Benny Feilhaber shot bounced to him for the first. Then, in the 50th minute, we scored on a corner of our own. AJ tucked a Tierney kick into the back post to tie the game. All that work pull us even and we continued to look for more goals. Maybe we are unlucky. Luck could have come when Saer Sene nutmeged Bill Hamid, but, lucky for DCU, Hamid’s heel knocked the ball just wide. With a tie game, De Rosario and Santos combined for one more goal and handed the Revs their sixth road loss.
Jay Heaps and his team are confident and they believe in themselves as evidenced by the start of the second half and erasing the 2-0 deficit. Our strengths on attack are apparent. Our weaknesses in defense provide a pretty clear. New England is stuck in the bottom half of the league and the bottom half of our conference until we string together more wins. Outside of trying to climb up in the Eastern conference the US Open Cup has been touted as another avenue for New England to win some games.
After listening to the game through the Revs website, I attempted to briefly summarize the Revs first US Open Cup game of 2012. Here are my notes, “Diego goes out in the first half, red carded, and we play the rest of the game down a man. The game ends 0-0 and there are two 15 minute overtimes. In the first overtime the Revs score THREE goals! In the second overtime the City Islanders score three goals. We go to a shootout which features a save by Shuttlesworth, a Kelyn Rowe miss… and a save on Benny’s shot. So, we lost.” Eight of the 16 MLS teams in the US Open Cup were upset by lower division teams. Our Revs seem to be just the wrong side of average lately. Our offense can score but defensive errors are holding us down. Perhaps we should take the perspective that we’re out of this competition, so now we can focus on earning an MLS Cup playoffs spot.
This weekend the Chicago Fire will come into New England looking to keep the Revs down near the bottom of the conference. Dominic Oduro, the speedy Gahanian, will test our defense, especially on counter attacks. Chicago’s newest addition, the returning Chris Rolfe, will be available against the Revs to play his first minutes of the season. Grazzini, who didn’t play in the recent losses to Columbus and the Michigan Bucks, is also likely to return. Along with Nyarko and Pappa, Chicago will like their chances to create offense and test the Revolution defense.
On The Rebel Alliance Podcast I optimistically predicted a New England 3-1 win and confessed that a two goal lead wouldn’t feel safe. I think, with Clyde Simms still out and now Ryan Guy also injured, rookie Kelyn Rowe could return to the starting lineup. I will also be watching for Sene to contribute to goals whether he creates the opportunity or blasts in the shot himself. As I have repeated here, we have to defend New England. Points at home, against a conference opponent, could keep us in competition for a playoff spot. I expect we will score and I know we can win.
(image courtesy of revolutionsoccer.net)
