{"id":33087,"date":"2015-03-30T11:20:41","date_gmt":"2015-03-30T15:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=33087"},"modified":"2015-03-30T15:08:47","modified_gmt":"2015-03-30T19:08:47","slug":"five-things-we-learned-nevsj","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=33087","title":{"rendered":"Five Things We Learned: #NEvSJ"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

Photo credit: Chris Aduama\/aduamaphotography.com<\/p><\/div>\n

It’s not often that Week 4 contests are worthy of the “instant classic” designation.\u00a0But Saturday’s Revs-Earthquakes clash will probably go down as one of the more memorable early-season\u00a0matches we’ve seen in recent years.<\/p>\n

Combine the elements, the way all three goals were scored, and the\u00a0yellow\u00a0ball (!)\u00a0and you’ve got yourself the kind of clash that you’ll be telling your grandkids about.\u00a0Okay, maybe just your already-born kin. Now, if a tractor had come on the field at some point, or some sort of obscure rule had come into play…<\/p>\n

With the drama firmly embedded into minds, and the frostbite still lingering in our fingers, let’s\u00a0plow right into\u00a0what stood out the most from a rare\u00a0March-time classic.<\/p>\n

1. BREAKING: The Goncalves-Farrell pairing isn’t a lost cause.<\/strong> Yes, the early reviews weren’t promising. Three goals in Seattle, and two more in New York City. At the time, it looked like only two things could’ve helped the situation: 1. a lot of money or 2. a time machine. Since the Revolution used option one on Jermaine Jones, and the technology for option two doesn’t yet exist, all that the club was left with was to cross its fingers and hope for the best. On Saturday, it looked like those crossed\u00a0digits were starting to work. The duo wasn’t perfect, but at least they looked like they resembled a pair of center backs who’ve met each other in person, a refreshing\u00a0departure from the first two debacles.\u00a0They also got bonus points for\u00a0keeping the\u00a0‘Quakes\u00a0off the board\u00a0from the run of play.\u00a0Time will tell if the partnership proves successful, but for now, it no longer looks like the Revolution are going to concede\u00a02,937 goals this year.<\/p>\n

2. Scott Caldwell\u00a0continues to play\u00a0like a guy who doesn’t realize he’s 5-8.<\/strong> For the second straight week, the diminutive defensive midfielder\u00a0performed with the verve\u00a0of\u00a0someone who found his car on blocks before heading up to Gillette. After tussling with the likes of Maxim Tissot and Eric Alexander, he wasn’t afraid to mix it up with Clarence Goodson, who’s like seven feet taller than him. And\u00a0that\u00a0tackle on\u00a0Goodson to set up the PK?\u00a0If there was such an\u00a0award for\u00a0foul of the week, that would’ve won it, handily.\u00a0Perhaps it’s just the residue of hanging around with Jermaine Jones. Or maybe it’s something else. Either way, Caldwell has\u00a0provided\u00a0some brute force in the midfield while Jones recovers, and you know what? We don’t\u00a0hate it. We don’t hate it at all.<\/p>\n

3. Sometimes, all you need is a little help from a San Jose defender.<\/strong> After\u00a0allowing its chances to be\u00a0senselessly destroyed during the first three weeks, it only stood to reason that the first Revolution goal would come from a fortuitous deflection. A deflection that froze an already frozen David Bingham. We’ll never know if Kelyn Rowe’s 21st minute shot from the corner of the box was going to fall into the back of the net without the\u00a0aid of Shaun Francis’ forehead. Unless, of course, we can somehow slide to an alternate universe like Jerry O’Connell (no relation) used to do\u00a0on that FOX sci-fi series.\u00a0Either way, the visual record will show that, for the second year in a row, a member of the Earthquake backline aided in the procurement of goal no. 1 for the Revolution.<\/p>\n

4. Daigo Kobayashi was no ‘Player X’ on Saturday.<\/strong> The Japanese midfielder probably won’t get his own bobblehead, nor will you see him prominently featured on a Revolution billboard anytime soon. But that doesn’t appear to phase Kobayashi in the least. With Jones out, Kobayashi has been\u00a0remarkably consistent, and that was especially evident on Saturday. Not only did he win the ball that led to Rowe’s opening goal, but his passing accuracy rate was 93 percent, which was actually down from 97 percent at one point in the game. Heaps said that Kobayashi’s contributions have been especially evident in the last three games. The only shame is that once Jones does return, the former Vancouver midfielder is likely headed back to the bench.<\/p>\n

5. We may have to wait awhile to see Diego Fagundez in the XI again.<\/strong> It may not have been the biggest surprise when the lineup was released, but the fact that Fagundez wasn’t included can’t be a good sign. While Heaps has said\u00a0many times this year\u00a0that he won’t be afraid to change personnel on a week-to-week basis to maximize the matchups, the fact that Fagundez hasn’t been great during the last two games may have had something to do with that absence. And when he didn’t come off the bench in the latter stages? True, Fagundez isn’t a defensive dynamo, and so putting him into match where the object is lead preservation probably doesn’t make sense. Then again, his absence from Saturday’s win begs the question as to whether we’re watching the Fagundez of 2014 reappear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What did we learn from Saturday’s inter-conference clash?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33088,"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":[891,49,888,76,892],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Daigo-1.png?fit=602%2C415","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33087"}],"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=33087"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33101,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33087\/revisions\/33101"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}