Improving Revs Undone by DC

Last Saturday’s 2-1defeat to DC United was disappointing. New England should passionately defend our home field. Compared to our young season’s best performance in Los Angeles, the Revs slipped in quality, sure. We weren’t our best, but we didn’t fall off a cliff, either. The Revolution are playing to win and, compared to last season, that shift has been palpable. Our sixth game last year was in Houston, and it ended in a similar fashion to this year’s visit to Dallas. It wasn’t a beautiful game, though we had our chances, Houston took it with one goal right at the end of the game. However, after six games last season our record was 1-2-3, compared to this years: 2-3-1. At first glance those numbers look pretty similar. That single win in the first six games was a come from behind, home debut for Benny Feilhaber and Rajko Lekic, 3-2 win over Sporting Kansas City. SKC was in the midst of a season-opening, unsuccessful, 10-game road trip. This year’s winning 3-1 performance in Los Angeles raised New England Revolution fan’s hopes. Last Saturday’s loss to DC has probably reined in expectations a bit.

DC’s attacking midfielder, De Rosario often found space for passing and shooting. The game seemed to roll from end to end before and after the first goal. The thrill of seeing that New England goal soured as DeRosario orchestrated the tying goal. A Nick DeLeon corner went past the center and De Ro drifted, turned, and then slammed a bicycle kick off the ground and up towards Maicon Santos. Santos headed the ball in for a ricocheting, net rattling goal. During a first-half, in-game interview, Coach Heaps thought our Revs were chasing the game. The Revolution generated a fair share of shots, though, a shot into the keeper’s hands is as good as a miss. With both teams seeking the lead, the game continued to roll back and forth. Instead of patiently building play up, the field became stretched and our center backs had lots of work as DC sent wings forward. Stephen McCarthy has and will continue to develop into a good center back. Chris Pontius, a second half DC substitute, cut back and found just enough space for a right-footed shot that curled away and then back inside the far post. DC had scored two quality goals after making and finding room to advance.

Our Revs lost this one. We conceded late goals in our last two games and we seem plagued with poor shooting. We are shooting, though, and we have shots coming from all over the field. Tierney’s set pieces, the fevered and determined Nguyen, Jose Moreno, Kelyn Rowe, and Saer Sene all took shots. The cross from Sene that Jose Moreno lasered in to open the scoring was a great assist for a great goal. This group, aside from Tierney, are all new to the team this season. Though conceding late and struggling with scoring are old, last season characteristics, they also describe how we lost to Dallas and DC. The new guys should keep shooting. Just a smidge of improvement in the accuracy of many of the shots from Sene, Nguyen, and Rowe and you could be reading a different story.  

So, after the first six games it feels like we have made progress from last year. It’s more difficult to discuss specifically how we have progressed after two straight losses. I was hoping to measure up against DC. The next time we play this conference rival we will have doubled our games played. The next six New England games are away to NYRB, hosting Colorado, away to RSL, home to Vancouver and Houston, and away to DC United. With two weeks before visiting New York, the Revs should return healthy and intent on showing our qualities. I hope to see more goals by the Revs and I expect we’ll measure up differently against DC the next time we play them.

(image courtesy of David Silverman)