The New England Revolution collected their first win of the season in dramatic fashion as Lee Nguyen scored a stoppage time tally to give his team a 2-1 result over the San Jose Earthquakes. While the Revs were delayed in finding their first goal of the year, Saturday’s outcome meant that they collected their first win ahead of seven teams, including Eastern Conference foes the Chicago Fire, New York Red Bulls, Montreal Impact and DC United.
The play on Saturday night was sloppy at times because of the onslaught of rain in San Jose. The first goal of the game highlighted the dreadful conditions as Victor Bernardez scored an own goal. The mishap happened when Jordan Stewart hit the ball towards the goalmouth to try and prevent a streaking Saer Sene from gaining possession. With goalkeeper Jon Busch out of his net, Bernardez made an unsuccessful last ditch effort to redirect the ball.
“The first half was a disgrace,” Clarence Goodson said. “That was one of the worst first halves of soccer I’ve ever been involved in. One through 11, we were horrendous. It was an absolute disgrace.”
The Quakes did better in the second half and it looked as though Chris Wondolowski was going to equalize in the 64th minute as Shea Salinas put the US International behind the defense. Wondolowski flubbed the chance, however, and hit the side netting.
Wondolowski would do better five minutes later. The play began when Cordell Cato beat Chris Tierney to send in a cross that deflected off of Jose Goncalves and fell to Wondolowski. This time, Wondolowski would easily finish his close range opportunity to bring the game level.
The Revs pushed for a game-winner by effectively countering. In the 80th minute, Andrew Farrell hit a long ball that eventually bounced to Nguyen, who played it swiftly to Charlie Davies. The New Hampshire native would carry the ball before finding Teal Bunbury on the right side. Although Bunbury’s cross would be blocked by Busch, the rebound fell to Nguyen, who had his shot blocked by Goodson.
Although the play didn’t result in a goal, it did foreshadow the eventually game-winner while also showing the quality that Davies and Bunbury bring to the team.
“I think Charlie and Teal have good chemistry,” head coach Jay Heaps said. “They are pretty close. For them to be on the field together, it showed that they both have ideas. Confidence wise, both of them have really been chomping at the bit to get goals and I think they will get them as they go.”
Davies helped create the deciding goal by offering a quick restart after being fouled at midfield. Scott Caldwell received Davies’ pass and immediately put Nguyen in on Busch with a quick pass of his own. Nguyen finished the chance, becoming the first Revs player to score in 2014.
“We have a lot of great finishers so I always want to give it to someone who can finish it,” Nguyen commented. “Luckily, everybody was making good runs at the end and put me in and that helped me out to get the goal.”
The win was the Revolution’s first on the West Coast since March 31, 2012 when the team beat the LA Galaxy 3-1. Perhaps more impressive was the fact that the Revs ended San Jose’s 21-game undefeated streak at Buck Shaw Stadium.
With their season-opening 304-minute scoreless streak now behind them, the Revs will look to continue to build momentum when they travel to RFK Stadium to face DC United next weekend.
“I’m happy with the performances that we have had; that is all that I am concerned about right now,” AJ Soares stated. “We have four points and we are going to build on it and move forward. We are confident but we were confident last week and the week before. Nothing has changed. We are used to winning now. We are going to move forward and get more points.”
Three Thoughts on the Game
- Davies’ performance is a reason for optimism. Once one of the brightest American talents, Davies hasn’t played much over the last 2 ½ years and hasn’t scored a goal in the same amount of time. The local product had injury issues to begin the season, which left many Revolution fans to wonder if he would be able to contribute. Davies silenced some of those voices on Saturday with a 28 minute shift that eclipsed the 23 minutes he contributing last year. Davies looked comfortable in the lone striker role as he took on defenders, combined with teammates and brought new life to the game. Davies isn’t a starter yet, and he’s not even a guaranteed player off the bench, but there should be optimism about his first full season with the team.
- Heaps made three smart substitutions. As mentioned above, Davies was a spark off the bench. Also contributing solid minutes was Caldwell, who came on for Daigo Kobayashi. Some fans groaned at the sight of the sophomore since he has been primarily deployed as a defensive midfielder. It’s important to remember, however, that Caldwell has the ability to ignite the attack with his passing, a trait we saw on Saturday. In the dying moments of the game, Heaps inserted Darrius Barnes to try to neutralize the barrage of crosses from the Earthquakes. While Stephen McCarthy would have been my choice because of his aerial prowess, the addition of Barnes worked in the same vain.
- You’re only as good as the latest win. Saturday’s victory was huge for the Revs since it broke the West Coast curse and ended a scoring draught. That having been said, the squad has always been good at accomplishing the impossible and meek when it comes to the expected. The Revs will now turn their focus on lowly DC United, a team that has caused Heaps’ men problems in the past. Back-to-back wins would do a lot for the team’s confidence and their position in the standings.
(image courtesy of Kari Heistad)
