On Saturday night in Kansas City’s Livestrong Sporting Park the New England Revolution will take the field against Sporting in front of their raucous, blue-clad, home-opening crowd. Our Revs will seek to turn their fortunes after the opening day debacle in San Jose. While we went on the road and capitulated through mistakes and missed opportunities, Sporting went to D.C. and took a victory with a late game Sapong strike. Ours is called a simple game and the agony and ecstasy of fandom exist in the simple struggle of that simple success: scoring more goals than the other team. As ever, that is the challenge we’ll face on Saturday in Kansas City.
Sporting Kansas City and coach Peter Vermes have assembled a talented slew of attacking threats and shown the ability to consistently defend. This team can play with three forwards, though only two lined up that way last week. Kei Kamara and Teal Bunbury started at forward while Grahm Zusi and Bobby Convey in the midfield bring their attacking skills from further back. Their goal came from sophomore C.J. Sapong, who entered for Bunbury. All of these players could create or produce the final strike for a goal. SKC’s defense is lead by a solid partnership between goalkeeper Jimmy Nielson and center back Aurélien Collin. In their house, on opening night, against this team that finished 2011 exactly opposite us in the Eastern Conference in first place, the Revs will look for our first goal of the season.
This game is potentially a much bigger challenge for our greenish Revs. The questions are whether or not our New England football club is simply too green and young in this iteration, in need of more experience, or showed the queasy, greenish tinge in San Jose of a team that will return to robust health soon. SKC has a bonified attack so, stopping them is a priority. If Chris Tierney returns at left back and AJ Soares is ready to return to center back then we will field a defense that is close to our strongest. Bumps, bruises, strains, and injuries to AJ and Darius Barnes and their successful return from those set backs are exactly the reason Stength and Conditioning Coach Nick Downing was added to our staff. I would rather those players sit out this early season match and play all season long than rush back and continue to pick up knock after knock. I am also heartened by the signing of Flo Lechner who seems likely to press Kevin Alston for starter’s minutes when his paperwork is finalized. If we cannot stop the SKC offense from scoring then we will have to score more goals than them.
Scoring more goals than SKC would start with scoring our first goal of 2012. Last week’s line-up on offense did not break through and actually score. Our best chances in San Jose came through Benny Feilhaber – absolutely no surprise, though, perhaps we should start some reinforcements? Lee Nguyen looked promising late in the game and we still haven’t seen any minutes from homegrown attacker, Diego Fagundez. Will Saer Séne start or play at all? Let’s hope that whatever opening games nerves we might have felt have been worked out of our system. While Clyde Simms shift didn’t produce fireworks his contribution was always supposed to a supporting role to more talented players.
Supah Captain, Shalrie Joseph started 2011 by scoring the opening goal against the Galaxy and on the road. That goal stood up for a road tie to open the season. Last week in San Jose a weak and short pass from our captain was seized by Shea Salinas as the Earthquakes built the games only goal. I will be watching for a more complete game from Shalrie, though he did have several of his trademark incisive leading passes behind the opposition’s defense. He is not the only player who I would like to see produce a higher quality turn. Rookie Kelyn Rowe had his preseason streak of tallying a goal or assist in his every appearance broken with his quiet outing. If line-up changes or simply improved play can bring a road goal and open up the 2012 scoring then fans will be reassured.
We are still waiting for the page to be turned on the Revs recent offensive futility. Last season we hosted SKC and pulled out a 3-2 victory. We also sent a reserve laden team to play a US Open Cup match amidst threatening Midwestern storms and got trounced. We did manage a tie in Livestrong Sporting Park, though the fortunes of each team swung wildly apart as the season closed. A result against SKC would be great news for New England. I really don’t know what to expect. I fear a series of Kansas City highlights, but I hope the Revolution offense finally clicks.
Check back here at Total-MLS.com in the days following the game for my recap. Harass me, @RKSwan, with #Revs talk. Listen to the Rebel Alliance Podcast (also on iTunes) to hear how @MrJNelson really feels about Kevin Alston’s play, what @MindofAbram thinks will happen against SKC, and a few other shenanigans. C’mon, you Revs!
(image courtesy of revolutionsoccer.net)
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