{"id":25483,"date":"2014-05-03T08:00:12","date_gmt":"2014-05-03T12:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=25483"},"modified":"2014-05-03T00:02:32","modified_gmt":"2014-05-03T04:02:32","slug":"what-theyre-saying-tfcvne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=25483","title":{"rendered":"What They’re Saying: #TFCvNE"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

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

With the first of three contests between the Revolution and the new-look Toronto FC on tap for Saturday, let’s take a look at what players and coaches on both sides were saying leading up to it.<\/p>\n

Revolution coach Jay Heaps:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“They\u2019ve gotten a couple of early leads and those are different situations\u00a0(where) possession is kind of a little bit of a…it\u2019s what kind of possession you\u2019re looking for. It\u2019s a misleading stat at times. But for me, I think that they strike, and they have the ability to strike with (Jermain) Defoe, with Gilberto is another player who opens up for Defoe, and obviously Michael Bradley. So I think that they have those players that can beat you. But honestly, I think that, to be realistic, they haven\u2019t had all those players together. I think their lineup has changed every game, so I think that also could be attributable to some of the struggles they\u2019ve had\u00a0– not having a consistent lineup.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Toronto FC coach Ryan Nelsen (via mlssoccer.com):<\/strong><\/p>\n

“They\u2019ve got some really good, exciting young players. Even last year, we had a good little battle with them so we expect a difficult game.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve got some lovely midfield players who are technically very good and feel comfortable when they have the ball. But, then they feel very uncomfortable in other areas. We\u2019ve got to look at their weaknesses and try to win the game.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Revolution defender Andrew Farrell:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve got really talented players: Bradley in the middle, Defoe up top and (Julio) Cesar are a few of the guys they have there. They\u2019re really talented: Defoe likes to get in behind, and he\u2019s got the pace, and he\u2019s also a world-class finisher. He can finish anything, and you\u00a0have to\u00a0contain guys like that. I think the team\u2019s excited to take on another challenge.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Toronto FC midfielder Michael Bradley (via mlssoccer.com):<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cNew England is a good team. They have some talented attacking players who can cause you trouble if you\u2019re not organized or committed enough to close them down and making the game hard on them. Having said that, we\u2019re confident in who we are and what we\u2019re about. We\u2019ve learned a lot about ourselves through these first six games and as we move into the next phase in the season, we feel ready.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Find out what the players and coaches were saying in the days leading up to Saturday’s Revs-Toronto FC tilt. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25485,"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":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Diego1.png?fit=493%2C259","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25483"}],"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=25483"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25487,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25483\/revisions\/25487"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}