New England Soccer Today

The Morning After: Revolution vs. Union


(Video: Carl Setterlund)

The Revolution capped a crazy weekend in the Eastern Conference by crushing the Union 5-1 on Sunday and gained the fifth and final playoff spot in the process.

Let’s look at a few stats, notes and leftovers from Sunday’s contest in Foxborough.

-Among the Revolution’s starters, Chris Tierney led the way in pass completion percentage by stringing together 90 percent of his passes. A.J. Soares wasn’t far behind with an 89 percent rate, followed by, of all players, Matt Reis, who finished the night at an 83 percent clip. The typically-consistent Scott Caldwell seemed to have somewhat of an off night: he only completed 76 percent of his passes.

-Soares had a particularly strong night, and led the backline with six clearances on the night, with four of them judged as “effective” by OPTA.

-Intriguing stat: The back four and Reis comprised the top five in the touches category. Jose Goncalves collected a team-high 64 touches, and was followed by Andrew Farrell (64), Reis (59), Soares (56) and Tierney (53).

-Intriguing stat, part 2: In Juan Agudelo’s seven games with the Revolution, the team has collected an astonishing 19 goals. That’s 2.71 goals/game, and in the minutes that Agudelo’s actually on the pitch, the Revolution average a goal every 32 minutes.

– Things that make you go hmmmmmm: Both of the Revolution’s five-goal performances this season have come on Sundays. Their last one came in a 5-0 win over the Galaxy on Sunday, Jun. 2. 

-As for Philadelphia’s XI, Jeff Parke (94 percent), Danny Cruz (93 percent) and Michael Farfan (93 percent) rounded out the top three passing performances. The normally-reliable Sebastien Le Toux had a forgettable night, with a 59 percent pass completion rate a big reason why the Union were unable to climb back into the game.

-Despite Le Toux’s struggles, Union coach John Hackworth believed that his team should’ve seized the momentum in the 53rd and 55th minutes, which saw a pair of his players’ shots fall into the back of the net. But the linesman ruled Le Toux’s tap on the former offside, while Conor Casey was called for a foul on Reis on what appeared to be a legit goal on the latter. Said Hackworth: “It’s hard. I think there are some plays that are made early in that second half and we felt like we did all the right things coming out of the locker room at halftime. We had the momentum, get the equalizer and feel like we got the go-ahead goal, twice. For whatever reason, the officials felt otherwise. It is incredibly hard to take that part of it because it changes so much.”

-After conceding only two goals in their last four contests, the Union were ravaged for five goals for the second time this season. They lost a 5-3 game to Montreal on May 25.

-While a 5-1 thrashing in a crucial, midseason conference clash may send shockwaves through the east, Jay Heaps said that the win wasn’t anything more than three points:  “I’ve got to be honest with you, we need points.
(A) statement is when you make the playoffs and do well in the playoffs. So for us we are trying to get points. We need to continue to get points at home and right the record at home. We’ve felt like we let games slip away here and we need to right that ship.”

-Rowe on the celebration of his second goal: “We planned [my goal celebration] so I wasn’t just alone with myself and Ryan Guy. We hopped in, we all got in the boat and rowed away to victory, I guess.”

-Cue the pertinent tweet:

The parting shot, courtesy of Rowe: “It was good for us to find the net again in a big way. We’re happy about it. A 5-1 victory – taking that into next week is big for us.”

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