{"id":10041,"date":"2012-03-06T17:13:14","date_gmt":"2012-03-06T22:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=10041"},"modified":"2012-03-06T17:15:09","modified_gmt":"2012-03-06T22:15:09","slug":"brettschneider-revved-up-for-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=10041","title":{"rendered":"Brettschneider Revved Up For 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

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With the New England Revolution ready to kick off the 2012 preseason on March 10th in San Jose, odds are the team is set to hand two new forwards their debuts.<\/p>\n

Former D.C. United striker Blake Brettschneider appears likely to be one of the beneficiaries after being unceremoniously dumped from D.C. after an impressive rookie campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m definitely excited to be here,\u201d Brettschneider said. \u201cIt\u2019s a little bit of a change from D.C., but I think it\u2019s moving in a positive direction for me. Obviously [there is] a lot of potential here \u2013 a great staff, a great team.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Revs didn\u2019t retain starting strikers Rajo Lekic and Milton Caraglio in the offseason leaving the striker spots wide open for someone like Brettschneider to step in and start on day one. With a new head coach in Jay Heaps, all positions were even more up in the air this preseason.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think every day you show up for practice is a chance to fight for a starting spot,\u201d said Brettschneider. \u201cWith the unique changes that they\u2019ve had here, it leaves a door open, but you want that competition. You want that fighting for spots day in and day out, so I think it will be a good thing for us here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second-year striker out of the University of South Carolina could find himself paired up with 25-year-old French striker and former Bayern Munich reserve Sa\u00ebr S\u00e8ne on opening day.<\/p>\n

Brettschneider started up top along with S\u00e8ne in the Revs FC Tucson Desert Diamond Cup group opening 3-2 victory over the Los Angeles Galaxy and again on Saturday in the preseason cup final penalty kick loss to the Galaxy, giving the pair a chance to start to learn each other\u2019s tendencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cSa\u00ebr\u2019s a great player,\u201d said Brettschneider. \u201cObviously he has a great background and [was] very well coached in his younger days. He\u2019s a big guy, but he\u2019s very skillful; very good with the ball. Typically when you see bigger guys like that they may lack that final touch, but Sa\u00ebr\u2019s confident on the ball and very good and knows what he\u2019s doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn that time that we had out in Tucson playing together I think you could see glimpses here and there of what could be a good partnership,\u201d Brettschneider added. \u201cBut we have a lot of good players here, so you never know who is going to be matched up\u2026 if it\u2019s Sa\u00ebr and me then we\u2019re going to do our best to get a win that day.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s quite the switch for Brettschneider who on February 3rd found himself without a team after being waived by D.C., despite making 15 appearances (nine starts) while tallying a goal and two assists as rookie. Ten days later Brettschneiderwas on trial with the Revs and on Tuesday earned himself a spot in the squad.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time [being released] was a little bit difficult to deal with, but looking back on it, it may not be the worst thing,\u201d said Brettscneider. \u201cI really enjoyed my time in D.C. and was sad to go, but with this opportunity comes a fresh start \u2013 a new place to play, new fans to play for.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll always have good memories of D.C., but it\u2019s a business and you move on and kind of roll with the punches and that\u2019s what I intend to do,\u201d he continued. \u201cI do look forward to those times we play them, but we\u2019re going to take it one game at a time and San Jose\u2019s first this Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Brettschneider the transition hasn\u2019t been too difficult. The 22-year-old noted some similarities between the two clubs with both having young rosters and young coaches. He was also pleased to find how easy it was to fit in and get along with his new teammates.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never know what you are going to find when you step into a new environment, but the team chemistry here and the team camaraderie is actually incredible,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are no cliques; there are no little segments of friends here and there\u2026 If you can\u2019t get along with your teammates and be happy around each other, I think you are in for a long season, but I think here we\u2019ve got a great group of guys and I think it will really help us down the road.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, Brettschneider is ready to kick of the 2012 season as a member of the Revolution. Though he believes the team still has some work to do, he\u2019s pleased with what they accomplished in their most recent preseason trip to Arizona.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust with the last couple of games out in Tucson, you can see a lot of really positive things and a lot of things that we can build on and move forward,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019d be crazy to tell you everything\u2019s perfect right now though. We have plenty of things that we can work on and get better at\u2026 but I think Jay [Heaps]\u2019 has got us headed in the right direction and I think everybody\u2019s bought into the team mentality.<\/p>\n

And Brettschneider believes that means the team is ready to give the fans something good to cheer for after a disastrous 2011 that saw the team finish with a record low five wins.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the Revs fans have a lot of positives to look forward to and, hopefully, a very successful season,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Revs newest striker excited to start season with new team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10042,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/brettschneiderfeature2.jpg?fit=490%2C240","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10041"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10041"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10046,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10041\/revisions\/10046"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}