{"id":20497,"date":"2013-07-13T12:08:52","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T16:08:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=20497"},"modified":"2013-07-22T15:57:11","modified_gmt":"2013-07-22T19:57:11","slug":"five-questions-revolution-vs-dynamo-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=20497","title":{"rendered":"Five Questions: Revolution vs. Dynamo"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Lee<\/a>

Lee Nguyen and the Revolution attack need to do better against the Dynamo this week (Photo: Kari Heistad\/capturedimages.biz)<\/p><\/div>\n

Sometimes, you just get the sense that certain games mean more to certain people.<\/p>\n

Now, before we go any further, this isn’t to suggest that Saturday’s midseason tilt against the Dynamo\u00a0means\u00a0little to some inside the locker room. By no means.\u00a0Everyone<\/em> will be ready. The\u00a0stakes\u00a0surrounding Revolution-Dynamo, round 2, week 18,\u00a0are enough to\u00a0render the pre-game smelling salts temporarily\u00a0obsolete.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0from an outsider’s perspective, it seems that\u00a0Saturday night means more than just a mid-season clash against a conference rival to Jay Heaps. It’s more than that. It’s some\u00a0respects, it seems\u00a0personal.<\/p>\n

We all know the backstory, of course. As a player, Houston is the club that stood in the way of Heaps and his teammates raising the MLS Cup trophy not once, but twice. We know that Heaps, who saw his last-ditch penalty stopped by Pat Onstad in the 2006 final, has been anxiously waiting for a game like this. A game against the Dynamo brimming with playoff implications.<\/p>\n

And it’s not just the Revolution-Dynamo MLS Cup\u00a0storyline, either. It’s the fact that Heaps wasn’t just\u00a0tabbed to coach a random MLS club some 20 months ago. No, he took the reins on his club. A club that had faltered badly since he announced his retirement two years previous<\/p>\n

Of course, Heaps harbors no ill will toward Dominic Kinnear, the players, and not especially to his good friend, Dynamo assistant Steve Ralston. We know this. We know that Heaps has always respected the Dynamo, and that probably isn’t going to change anytime soon.<\/p>\n

But there’s no doubt that Heaps, perhaps more than anyone else in the Revolution locker room, save for maybe Matt Reis, wants payback. He wants to return the favor for the heartache that Houston delivered in 2006 and 2007. You might say that Superliga in 2008 may have eased some of the hurt, but at last check, Superliga went the way of shootouts and reverse game clocks.<\/p>\n

The past may be dead, for sure, and it’s hard to imagine that Heaps stays up late at night\u00a0dwelling on the Dynamo during the offseason. But when they show up on the schedule, two points above the Revolution in mid-July, you have to think that the game becomes more than just a game. It’s a chance to right a wrong, to heal a wound, and\u00a0to claim a sense of\u00a0redemption,\u00a0not only for himself or his teammates from the 2006-07 years, but for the fanbase, as well.<\/p>\n

The middle of the season is upon us indeed, and what better way to ring in the final 17 games with a fresh batch of questions?<\/p>\n

1. Will the Revolution attack find its groove against Houston?<\/strong> Last week’s 2-0 win over San Jose was certainly\u00a0a nice way to put the breaks on a worrisome, three-game winless streak. An early goal, a late goal, shots galore, and another clean sheet courtesy of the Revolution defense probably\u00a0made it easier to sleep on Saturday night. But given the number of gift-wrapped opportunities they left on the front step, Heaps wasn’t about to let his players off the hook easily. Oh, he was happy about the defense. They played well by anyone’s standards. But the offense – well, let’s just say they\u00a0missed their\u00a0opportunity to do what Sharknado did to\u00a0Fin’s against a tired, injured and call-up depleted ‘Quakes. This week, the Revolution can’t afford to stay in second gear. Not with a rested opponent, and most certainly not against one of the stingiest defenses in the league. Sure, the\u00a0Revolution\u00a0may want to rip a page out of last week’s win by scoring soon after the opening whistle, a la Saer Sene’s 13th minute goal, which probably would’ve been his second of the game had he converted his first chance\u00a0in the 2nd minute. However, the attack\u00a0must be sharper in the final third this\u00a0time around.\u00a0They have to put their chances\u00a0away\u00a0if they want to\u00a0make Tally Hall and his Houston teammates losers. Literally.<\/p>\n

2. Can Jose Goncalves and Stephen McCarthy resume their dominance in the back?<\/strong> This is not Fantasyland,\u00a0and under that\u00a0premise,\u00a0Adam Jahn is not Chris Wondolowski,\u00a0and\u00a0Alan Gordon, a proven performer in his own right,\u00a0is not\u00a0Steven Lenhart.\u00a0In other words,\u00a0the Revolution back four did not face a full-strength San Jose last week. This week, the\u00a0test becomes a little tougher. Now, granted, Boniek Garcia and Giles Barnes aren’t Will Bruin or Brad Davis. But they will almost certainly pose\u00a0more of a challenge\u00a0to the Goncalves-McCarthy partnership. To blanket both,\u00a0the\u00a0imposing duo\u00a0must think and act quickly, and avoid\u00a0the mistakes they made in Vancouver a few weeks ago.\u00a0They need to communicate and stay in\u00a0tune with Scott Caldwell, who\u00a0has to\u00a0play much bigger than his 5-8 frame against an attack that regularly carved through the Union defense last week.\u00a0The evidence suggests that the\u00a0Dynamo will find more opportunities than their former namesake last week, but the Revolution center backs have already proven this season that they’re capable of disposing the two-time defending conference champs.<\/p>\n

3. Does Chad Barrett get another start after last week’s performance?<\/strong> He certainly deserves strong consideration, no? Last week, he tore\u00a0a hapless\u00a0San Jose defense to shreds, burning them on and\u00a0off the and with better aim, probably would’ve scribbled his name on the scoresheet. This week, against a couple of powerful center backs in Bobby Boswell and Eric Brunner, the Revolution need a banger up front. A battering ram, if you will. And who better than the grizzled veteran to do lay down the lumber? But it’s not just his ability to win balls and boldly go where few forwards go. It’s the fact that he doesn’t find himself on the wrong page when the attack advances, something that a certain player whose name rhymes with Berry Jengtson tends to do. Of course, we all know how much Heaps values the players’ efforts in training, so there’s no such thing as a good performance earning an automatic start the following week. However, it seems pretty apparent that the Revolution’s number 9 should be in the 9 spot on Saturday’s starting XI.<\/p>\n

4. Is this the game that Diego Fagundez resumes his goalscoring prowess?<\/strong> It has the potential to be, that’s for sure. While Heaps has sung the praises of Houston’s brash back four, this seems like the kind of game that the teenager resumes his goalscoring adventures. For starters, we’ve already seen Diego\u00a0slice through this defense\u00a0using a cunning, well-timed\u00a0run, often\u00a0the perfect antidote\u00a0against brute strength. Yes,\u00a0the 51st minute\u00a0strike came with Boswell\u00a0in the locker room\u00a0after\u00a0he was ejected for a head-butt on Dimitry Imbongo. And yes, playing 10-v-10 opens up a little more operating room. He may have gone 88 minutes last week without firing a single shot, but the last time\u00a0that happened\u00a0(Apr. 20 vs. New York), he followed it up by putting one in the back of the net (Apr. 27 vs. Philadelphia). Just saying, it wouldn’t be surprising if history repeats itself on Saturday.<\/p>\n

5. What would three points for the hosts mean on Saturday night?<\/strong> Short-term, it’s huge. It’s a classic six-point swing\u00a0for the winner, and let’s face it: this is the kind of game that\u00a0often\u00a0tells us\u00a0whether a club is a contender, or a pretender. It’s still early, yes. There’s plenty of soccer\u00a0to\u00a0play\u00a0before we start carving our pumpkins and\u00a0raking the leaves.\u00a0But holding a playoff spot during the second half of the season –\u00a0even if it is the very early portion of that half – \u00a0is something we haven’t seen since the days of Mauricio Castro, Emmanuel Osei\u00a0and Kheli Dube.\u00a0Heaps has never been one to look too far ahead – after all, it only takes a few weeks for the landscape to be turned upside down in Don Garber’s playground. But a win – a second half win against a formidable conference rival, at that – would\u00a0certainly\u00a0do wonders for their\u00a0playoff ambitions\u00a0before embarking on a tough,\u00a0three-game road swing to close out the month of the July.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before trekking out to Gillette, or dusting off the couch, check out our weekly pre-game course of questions. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20503,"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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3],"tags":[193,427,46,115,190,156,497,1274,124,10],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Lee-1.png?fit=507%2C257","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20497"}],"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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20497"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20511,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20497\/revisions\/20511"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}