{"id":24227,"date":"2014-03-07T08:34:16","date_gmt":"2014-03-07T13:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=24227"},"modified":"2014-03-11T12:09:11","modified_gmt":"2014-03-11T16:09:11","slug":"preview-houvne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=24227","title":{"rendered":"Match Preview: #HOUvNE"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

Photo credit: Kari Heistad\/capturedimages.biz<\/p><\/div>\n

The New England Revolution\u00a0kick off their\u00a02014 campaign this weekend in Houston<\/a>, where the perennially potent Dynamo await. The match is set to take place on Saturday at 8:30 pm EST at BBVA Compass Stadium.<\/p>\n

The hosts, who lost to the eventual MLS Cup winners Sporting Kansas City last season in the Conference finals, are hoping to return to the\u00a0MLS Cup Final\u00a0by the end of the season after missing out on last year’s championship\u00a0match\u00a0for the first time in three years.<\/p>\n

Houston\u2019s head coach Dominic Kinnear lost\u00a0defensive leader Bobby Boswell (D.C. United)\u00a0and longtime scorer Brian Ching (retired) during the off-season,\u00a0but\u00a0for the most part,\u00a0the usual suspects will be in town\u00a0for New England\u2019s visit. David Horst has been tabbed to fill the void left by Boswell at the center back position, while Will Bruin will be asked to carry more of the load this year.<\/p>\n

On the\u00a0other side end of the pitch, the Revs\u00a0saw Juan Agudelo (Stoke City) and Matt Reis (retired) depart during the offseason, but made a pair of intriguing moves to address the losses. They acquired\u00a0\u00a0striker Teal Bunbury from\u00a0K.C. and\u00a0midfielder Daigo Kobayashi from Vancouver, while drafting\u00a0Steve Neumann and Patrick Mullins, two of the top attacking talents during the draft. To stengthen the situation between the sticks, Brad Knighton was brought in from Vancouver.<\/p>\n

But for all the moves the Revs made, they haven’t been able to dodge the injury bug this winter.\u00a0Captain Jose Goncalves (quad strain) \u00a0and left back Chris Tierney (hamstring strain)\u00a0are both\u00a0listed as “questionable” while right back Andrew Farrell (tibial stress reaction) and \u00a0midfielder Lee Nguyen (groin strain)\u00a0are both listed as “out” on the team’s injury report.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the Revolution have plenty of depth to address the injury concerns. Kobayashi will likely slide into Nguyen’s place, while veteran Kevin Alston could fill the right back spot. Teal Bunbury is the projected starter up, with Kelyn Rowe, Diego Fagundez and Scott Caldwell nearby and ready to help their new teammate test Houston’s backline.<\/p>\n

The corresponding match last season between the two clubs ended in a 2-0 victory for the visiting Revolution, but Houston won the next outing at Gillette Stadium in a 2-1 after receiving a pair of goals from Adam Moffat. Their third and final match of the season ended on a 1-1 draw.<\/p>\n

The Revs enjoy a 7-4-6 record against the Dynamo, and interestingly, five of those wins came in Houston. It must be noted that those\u00a0five wins in Houston are the most by any visiting team since the Dynamo joined the league in 2006.<\/p>\n

The Revs have proven that they can win in Houston, and a win on Saturday can only boost their confidence for the rest of the season. After all, they enjoyed their best season in recent in recent memory last year after snatching a 1-0 victory against the Chicago Fire at Toyota Park in the season opener.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Revs and Dynamo kick off the 2014 season at BBVA Compass Stadium on Saturday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":24232,"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":[684,142,685,46,115,190,107,49,1274,135,680],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/lee1.png?fit=507%2C259","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24227"}],"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\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24227"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24261,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24227\/revisions\/24261"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}