Stretching the Legs…and Then Some
- Updated: February 1, 2017
Photo credit: New England Revolution
On it’s face, Tuesday’s preseason opener may have seemed little more than a run-of-the-mill scrimmage. To those involved, though, the 1-1 draw to Minnesota United was a hardly meaningless exercise.
Little more than a week after his players reported for preseason camp, Revolution coach Jay Heaps used the first match of the winter to gauge how far along his players are in terms of getting their legs under them.
“It was good to get guys 45 minutes,” Heaps told the media after the match. “We’re still in that phase of building fitness, getting game fitness, but building in certain things along the way about our shape defensively and how quick and how fast we have to play.”
Heaps fielded two entirely different sides for each half of the match as 23 different players saw the field for the Revolution, including 10 newcomers. Among the new faces: recent international signing Antonio Mlinar Delamea, who played the first 45 opposite Je-Vaughn Watson at center back.
“I thought he was excellent,” Heaps said of the Slovenian international. “I thought he communicated well, and every chance he had to defend, he did an excellent job.”
But Tuesday’s tilt wasn’t just about integrating his newest charges into the squad. Rather, Heaps wanted to see his players build the kind of chemistry that was missing all too often last year.
“It’s super important,” Revolution defender/midfielder Donnie Smith told the media on Tuesday. “You’ve got trialists in here, rookies in here, so we all need to get on the same page and use these first couple games to get everybody’s feet wet and just kind of used to what they’re supposed to be doing.”
That includes everyone committing themselves to the dirty work required to limit the other side’s chances, something the 2016 Revolution struggled to do against the competition.
“We’ve really been stressing the defensive part,” Revolution forward Brian Wright told the media on Tuesday. “I thought defensively we were organized. At times we weren’t, but I thought we dealt with situations well while we were out there.”
Like many preseason openers, Tuesday’s match was very much a mixed bag. Chances were squandered and seized, and neither team looked like the second coming of Clockwork Oranje. Even so, Heaps was generally pleased with how it all transpired.
“You’re playing outside competition for the first time, so that’s good,” Heaps said. “We’ve been pushing each other, against each other, so it’s good to get on the field, play against another team.”
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