{"id":37077,"date":"2015-07-19T22:37:09","date_gmt":"2015-07-20T02:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=37077"},"modified":"2015-07-19T22:37:09","modified_gmt":"2015-07-20T02:37:09","slug":"fagundez-finds-his-stride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=37077","title":{"rendered":"Fagundez Finds His Stride"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

Photo credit: Jeff Bernstein<\/p><\/div>\n

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – The lone goal of Saturday’s match between the Revolution and New York City may have came off the foot of Lee Nguyen, but there was no question that Diego Fagundez had a standout performance only a week after he was left out of the XI against the Red Bulls.<\/p>\n

Fagundez, who started on the right side of the midfield over Juan Agudelo, was active on both ends of the field, pushing the tempo on the offensive end and providing much-needed help to a make-shift back line on the defensive end, and most notably, provided the assist on Nguyen\u2019s goal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought Diego was very good tonight,\u201d Revolution coach Jay Heaps said. \u201cI thought he brought the right mindset and it was an aggressive plan on our end because we want Diego to be in those attacking positions and what we ask of him is to really put that effort in defensively and tonight I thought that he was really good on both sides of the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fagundez went the full 90 and registered two shots on the night, along with the assist. The Homegrown Player was vital to the run of play that led to the goal.<\/p>\n

Fagundez received the ball from Jeremy Hall in the midfield before playing a back-and-forth with Daigo Kobayashi. He then slotted a seeking pass through the defense to Nguyen, who finished the chance. The trio of Fagundez, Kobayashi and Nguyen appeared to be on a different level with their communication.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it kind of just happens in the game,\u201d Fagundez said about their communication. \u201cYou start playing the ball with someone and you feel comfortable so you try to look for them more. I think we were just trying to combine in the middle with all the players we have. We have such great talent in the middle that it\u2019s easy to just combine with someone. Us three were trying to do everything we can to make plays happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fagundez\u2019s resurgent play caught the eye of more than one of his teammates.<\/p>\n

\u201cDiego was great,\u201d Revolution captain Chris Tierney said. \u201cI thought that he had a lot of energy tonight. He was up and back, he defended as well which I thought was important. I think Diego, every time we play at home, he shows his quality. There\u2019s something about him playing at Gillette that I think really suits him. I thought he was great.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Tierney and Heaps were complimentary, forward Charlie Davies gave a true look into how important the performance was for the young midfielder.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019ve said it all along: Diego had to go through a season like he did last year,\u201d Davies said. \u201cWhere he\u2019s coming off such a high, scoring [thirteen] goals in the league and being a prime-time, big MLS player at such a young age. Then the following season, things not going for him so well. And having to stay positive, having to keep working and understanding that this game is a lot of ups and downs.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes you have confidence, and sometimes you don\u2019t, but you\u2019ve gotta keep working. You\u2019ve gotta stay positive and he\u2019s been able to do that. Kudos to him because I\u2019ve always kept talking to him to make sure that he\u2019s taking the right steps to be a professional – to fulfilling his potential. I think he\u2019s done a terrific job, this season, of whenever he\u2019s coming in, he\u2019s making an impact. So he\u2019s taken a huge step forward, and those are things you love to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fagundez will look to keep his momentum moving forward as the Revolution travel to Chicago next week, the only other team the locals have defeated since the beginning of May.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Diego Fagundez did everything but find the back of the net in Saturday’s win over New York City. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":37078,"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":[142,891,1274,892],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Diego1.png?fit=600%2C415","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37077"}],"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\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37077"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37089,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37077\/revisions\/37089"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}