On Wednesday, in front of a small crowd gathered at Veteran\u2019s Memorial Stadium, the New England Force\u00a0earned a 1-1 draw versus Club Sport Herediano in a friendly in\u00a0New Britain, CT.<\/p>\n
The 2012 Primera Divisi\u00f3n de Costa Rica champions and CONCACAF Champions League competitors brought several Costa Rican national team members,\u00a0\u00a0as well as former New England Revolution midfielder Jos\u00e9 \u201cPepe\u201d Cancela, for the Force’s first public game after a series of closed-door springtime matches.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was excellent for us,\u201d said Force head coach Jon Langer. \u201cWe\u2019re a team playing our first (public) game, have had only had a few practices, and came out and drew a club that\u2019s playing in CONCACAF with five of their national players on the field.\u201d<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Force fielded a team of signees ranging from collegiate players like Colgate University senior captain and graduate Mike Garzi to veterans with national team experience like Sengalese national and former MLS player Birahim Diop.<\/p>\n
In the first forty-five minutes, both teams made their fair share of runs into the other\u2019s territory with Herediano\u2019s Cancela providing service Mali national goalkeeper Mahamadou Sidib\u00e9\u00a0made short work of while New England charged through the Costa Rican lines only to struggle at finishing.<\/p>\n
Both teams took early shots as Los Rojiamarillos opened with a shot in the 3rd<\/sup> minute while New England\u2019s first recorded shot on goal came twenty-three minutes in from forward and Stamford, CT local John Raus.<\/p>\n At the start of the second half, both teams came out shooting with Herediano trying from distance and missing wide. The Force then countered with a ripping shot from former DC United and El Salvador U-20 player Irvin Herrera in the 57th <\/sup>minute.<\/p>\n Three minutes later, Raus returned and fired at the Herediano \u2018keeper who managed to deflect him, only to have Diop bury the loose ball.<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels very good, you know?\u201d Diop\u00a0said of\u00a0his goal. \u201cI\u2019m very happy to have played against them in the first place and then score. It\u2019s a good thing in our first game.\u201d<\/p>\n As soon as the match resumed, Herediano began their counterattack with Costa Rican national player Esteban Ramirez surging towards the Force box.<\/p>\n In\u00a0the 75th<\/sup> minute, another Costa Rican National Team member, Minor Diaz, would finish a corner kick to equalize despite Sidib\u00e9 and Jamaican national Desmond Breakenridge diving for the ball.<\/p>\n Herediano nearly scored again a minute later on a rocket shot from Mauricio N\u00fa\u00f1ez, but the crossbar\u00a0denied him.<\/p>\n At the final whistle, after the Force held off a late onslaught with crucial saves from Sidib\u00e9, both teams shook hands and went to exchange jerseys as about\u00a0two dozen Herediano supporters took photos with their favorite players.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it was a great game,\u201d said a Herediano staffer standing by his team\u2019s taxis. \u201cIt was a 50-50 game. New England Force have a lot of future and 3-4 players who really make a difference. They have a good pace, a good rhythm.\u201d<\/p>\n While the Force resume training and prepare for a match in New York versus CD FAS\u00a0(El Salvador) on September 25th<\/sup>, Herediano will be heading back for a local tournament match on Sunday vs. Liga Deportiva Alajuenlense and continue CONCACAF play vs. Valencia FC on the 18th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The New England Force earned a 1-1 draw with Costa Rican side Herediano in New Britain, Conn. on Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"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":[1],"tags":[587,586,585,588,589,1313],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21558"}],"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\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21558"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21562,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21558\/revisions\/21562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}