Second-Best Foot Forward
- Updated: April 25, 2015
Photo credit: Kari Heistad/capturedimages.biz
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – The notion that Chris Tierney only can use his left foot was put to rest, at least for one night.
Tierney scored a beautiful goal, curling the ball with his right just inside the back post that gave New England a 1-0 lead in the 39th minute.
“Don’t get used to it, that’s probably a one time thing there,” Tierney said with a big smile postgame. “It was a good play by Juan to get it out to me, cut it back to the right and gave it go. Closed my eyes and swung the right peg and it went in.”
Tierney said it was his first goal with his right foot as a professional.
The play started with a throw in from Lee Nguyen, who found right back London Woodberry. Woodberry played a service into the area that was headed up by Aaron Maund. Juan Agudelo was able to track the ball down just outside the area and chipped a lead pass to Tierney inside the left side of the box. Tierney used three touches with his left – one to bring the ball down, one to fake a shot and cut the ball back and the final one with the outside of his left to set up his right footed curling shot.
Not only did Tierney’s strike come as a surprise to him, it surprised Charlie Davies, who has been playing with Tierney for years.
“I’ve been playing with Chris since I was 12 years old,” Davies said. “He’s always had an amazing left foot and I can honestly say I’ve never seen him strike a ball with his right foot, at least on goal, so it was special. I was very happy for him, obviously, because we go way back. He better cherish that one for sure.”
Tierney has emerged as one of the most dangerous crossers in the entire league this year. New England has consistently worked the ball to the left side of the pitch in order to try and get a service from Tierney’s left foot. But for one night, Tierney was confident to give his right foot another go.
In the 49th minute, Tierney started the play by taking a short touch from Agudelo right over half and sprinted forward. He found Davies with a pass into the area but after Davies tried to cut the ball back to his left foot, Elias Vasquez slid in and knocked the ball way from him. The ball, however, rolled right to right to Tierney in the middle of the pitch at the top of the 18 yard line. Tierney unleashed a curling shot with his right foot, looking to find the back of the net again, but RSL goalie Jeff Attinella dove to his left and was able to get his hands to it to push it wide for a corner.
On the ensuing corner, Tierney played it short to Nguyen but received it right back. Tierney went back to Scott Caldwell and his service into the area found the head of Charlie Davies to give the Revolution a 3-0 lead in the 50th minute.
“The game got really stretched out and we had a ton of chances tonight,” Tierney said of his second attempt. “We really just played really well. We’re all excited but the question is can we do it again next week?”
After the game, head coach Jay Heaps was asked if he had seen Tierney convert with his right foot in training before.
“No, then he got greedy and tried to get a second one,” Heaps joked. “Chris is great, and I think that’s the key because he has such a great left foot you have to over play it. I think you have to over play it. For him to pull it back, he sensed he was going get a little bit of space and he hit that right foot perfectly. That was a great time to do it. He’s so good with that left foot that people have to respect it and over-commit.”
It was Tierney’s first goal of the 2015 season and first regular season goal since New England’s 5-3 win over Philadelphia in May of 2014. Tierney did score twice in the Revolution’s playoff run last season.
“RSL is always a really tough match up for us,” Tierney said. “I don’t know that I’ve ever beaten them so it felt good. They’ve stuck it to us a couple of times. I think it was either my rookie year or my second year we lost 6-0 at their place. It felt good to turn that around on them. But we’re looking forward, we played really well tonight. It didn’t really matter the opponent, I think we were going to win tonight no matter what. If we bring the game we brought tonight, we’re going to keep moving forward and pick up points.”
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