New England Soccer Today

Nguyen Signs New Deal

Photo credit: Kari Heistad/capturedimages.biz

Photo credit: Kari Heistad/capturedimages.biz

It appears that Lee Nguyen has finally made peace with the Revolution front office.

Almost a year after skipping practice to express his frustration over a deal that made him only the eighth-highest paid player on the team, the 2014 MVP finalist signed a contract extension with the club on Friday.

Nguyen, who was scheduled to make $175,000 in 2016, inked a deal that will keep him in Foxborough beyond 2016. Terms of the new contract were not disclosed, per MLS and club policy. FOX Soccer’s Kyle McCarthy confirmed that Targeted Allocation Money (TAM) was likely used in Nguyen’s deal.

“Lee is an important member of this Club and we’re pleased we were able to reach a new agreement with him,” Revolution General Manager Michael Burns said in a club release. “He is a player who has the ability to make players around him better and we’ve all seen his game develop incrementally since he joined us in 2012.”

Since joining the club via waivers prior to the start of the 2012 season, the McKinney, Tx. native has scored 34 goals and collected 24 assists in 129 appearances for the locals.

At the international level, Nguyen has nine caps with the United States Men’s National Team, and recently earned his first two starts against Iceland and Canada in January. After making his National Team debut in the 2007 Copa America, Nguyen re-emerged onto the USMNT scene in 2014, seven years after earning his initial three caps.

Nguyen’s best season in a Revolution kit came in 2014, a year in which he tallied 18 goals and five assists, good enough to become a finalist for league MVP. The 18 goals were the most scored by a pure midfielder in MLS history.

A year after leading the squad in scoring, the creative midfielder assumed the role of chief architect in New England by notching a club-high 10 assists in 2015.

“We look forward to his continued contributions on the field,” Burns said,  “and have no doubt he will assume an even larger leadership role for New England both on and off the field.”

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