{"id":21072,"date":"2013-08-06T23:26:40","date_gmt":"2013-08-07T03:26:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=21072"},"modified":"2013-08-20T09:15:40","modified_gmt":"2013-08-20T13:15:40","slug":"revs-rue-missed-opportunities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=21072","title":{"rendered":"Revs Rue Missed Opportunities"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Revolution<\/a>

Revolution defender Jose Goncalves’ lone mistake on Sunday led to Toronto’s game-winning goal. (Photo: Kari Heistad\/capturedimages.biz)<\/p><\/div>\n

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. \u2013 No team is ever keen to concede an early goal, but even after the Revolution gave up a second minute strike to Toronto on Sunday, the hosts had to like their chances.<\/p>\n

With 88 minutes to level it, and their 2-1 comeback victory a week earlier in D.C. still fresh in their minds, there was little reason to believe that the Revolution couldn\u2019t climb out of the early deficit.<\/p>\n

But even with plenty of time and opportunities to pull even against one of the worst defenses in the conference, the Revolution were left to wonder \u201cwhat if?\u201d in the wake of the 1-0 loss.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should have been able to get back in it,\u201d Revolution head coach Jay Heaps said after the game. \u201cWe didn\u2019t. But I\u2019m not going to sit here and not credit Toronto. They got the win, and we didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Matias Laba\u2019s singular effort inside of two minutes put the hosts on their heels early, the Revolution went to work on filing a response against a team mired in ninth place.<\/p>\n

However, it became patently evident even before the halftime whistle that, simply put, Sunday night was not going to be the Revolution\u2019s night.<\/p>\n

In the first half alone, Diego Fagundez had not one, but two, certain goals cleared away by Ashtone Morgan and Richard Eckersley within 16 minutes of each other. Meanwhile, goalkeeper Joe Bendik did his part to frustrate the Revolution.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe created plenty of chances in the first half,\u201d Revolution midfielder Lee Ngyuen said after the fame. \u201c(But) none of them were able to fall (through).\u201d<\/p>\n

With Toronto content to drop numbers, it didn\u2019t get much easier for the Revolution in the second half. The attack, which had scored four second half goals in their last two games, were repeatedly repelled by a swarm of defenders inside the final third.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe kept putting ourselves into a deeper hole in the second half by continuing to not being able to finish,\u201d Nguyen said. \u201cIt\u2019s always tough to breakdown a team that plays 11 men behind the ball like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

All hope wasn\u2019t lost for the hosts even though Toronto\u2019s gameplan was working like a charm. In the 90th minute, Nguyen had a tantalizing chance to level it when he brought down a long pass from Kelyn Rowe near the left post. But Bendik reacted well to it, and walled up the inside the post to prevent Nguyen from scoring.<\/p>\n

And just when Fagundez thought his streak of poor luck had expired, he ripped a remarkable volley that, for a split second, was destined for the back of the net for a potential stoppage-time strike. But the shot crashed off the post, and the Revolution were left to rue their misfortune.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe gave them a gift in the first two minutes and it\u2019s always tough to climb back like that,\u201d Nguyen said. \u201cWe fought hard, tried to put ourselves in a position to tie in the first half and try to get a goal. It just wasn\u2019t our day today.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There were plenty of chances for the Revolution to equalize in Sunday’s 1-0 loss to Toronto.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21090,"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":[142,115,49,1274,71],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Jose-1.png?fit=497%2C257","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21072"}],"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=21072"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21431,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21072\/revisions\/21431"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}