{"id":33238,"date":"2015-04-04T22:51:51","date_gmt":"2015-04-05T02:51:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=33238"},"modified":"2015-04-05T10:02:18","modified_gmt":"2015-04-05T14:02:18","slug":"three-thoughts-colvne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=33238","title":{"rendered":"Three Thoughts: #COLvNE"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

Photo credit: Corbin Elliot\/Prost Amerika<\/p><\/div>\n

Three thoughts on the Revolution’s 2-0 win over the Rapids on Saturday at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Colo.<\/p>\n

Juan Agudelo had the fitness and sharpness:<\/strong> The main talking point for Juan Agudelo will be that\u00a0sensational finish with which he put the Revolution up 1-0. But there\u2019s more to the story than the resurgence of Swagudelo<\/em>. Goals don\u2019t happen every game\u2014especially ones as impressive as the one we saw in the 18th minute. So perhaps it makes more sense to focus on the basics and intangibles that Agudelo displayed. For the first time all season, the 22-year-old looked completely fit, and at elevation, no less. But Agudelo\u2019s sharpness\u2014both on the ball and off\u2014was another reason why the Revolution were able get their first win in Colorado since 2002. He made a major difference for the Revolution on Saturday night, and not just by putting the ball in the back of the net.<\/p>\n

Possession game, there you are:<\/strong> The Revolution don\u2019t have to have more of the ball to win the possession battle\u2014that much was obvious on Saturday night. That\u2019s because you can use possession as a two-way street, taking away transitions. In keeping the ball better, teams allow time for recuperation, take energy away from their opponents, and guard against the counterattack. All three of those factors were in play as the Revolution knocked the ball around against Colorado, especially early on. That was a smart tactic to employ after taking a 1-0 lead. Colorado may be used to the elevation as the home team, but they were going to get gassed eventually. The Revolution\u2019s strong possession game was especially key\u00a0as Colorado knocked on the door late.<\/p>\n

Back line does its job:<\/strong> This was a night for firsts for the goal scorers (Agudelo and Lee Nguyen), but also a first for the franchise in that it got its first victory at Dick\u2019s Sporting Goods Park. No matter how poorly the Rapids attack looked going into Saturday’s match,\u00a0 this was always going to be a challenging game for the Revolution. Kudos to the back line, which endured swaps (Kevin Alston for Jose Goncalves, then\u00a0Darrius Barnes\u00a0moving to center back), the elevation, and a ruthless Colorado attack. Yes, the guests\u00a0should be thankful\u00a0for poor finishing from the hosts, not to mention a suspicious non-call inside New England’s area around the hour mark. Regardless, Bobby Shuttlworth and the backline\u00a0preserved the clean sheet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three quick-hit thoughts from Saturday’s 2-0 win for the Revs over the Rapids. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":33267,"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":[66,891,49,888,892],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Charlie-9.png?fit=600%2C416","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33238"}],"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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33238"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33268,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33238\/revisions\/33268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}