{"id":43435,"date":"2016-08-09T23:22:40","date_gmt":"2016-08-10T03:22:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=43435"},"modified":"2016-08-09T23:23:39","modified_gmt":"2016-08-10T03:23:39","slug":"watson-strikes-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=43435","title":{"rendered":"Watson Strikes Again"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo

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

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Defense and versatility are two things Je-Vaughn Watson has earned a reputation for in his time in Major League Soccer. Scoring, not so much.<\/p>\n

You wouldn\u2019t know that if you\u2019d just started tuning into his career over the past few weeks, however. Tuesday\u2019s goal, the game winner for the New England Revolution in their 3-1 win against the Chicago Fire in the U.S. Open Cup semifinals at Gillette Stadium was Watson\u2019s third in as many weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m in the zone, you know,\u201d said Watson. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to do whatever you have to do. If I can\u2019t get it far away to hit it, I\u2019m going to try to come closer. Which one would you rather get it, close or far away? I\u2019d rather get it close to finish it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watson, who has shown his versatility this season by playing right back, left back, center back and defensive midfield for the Revolution this season, played 75 minutes at center back before switching to defensive\u00a0midfield on Tuesday. His goal came in the 42nd<\/sup> minute off a Revolution corner kick. The key finish came less than two minutes after the Revolution had conceded an equalizer to Chicago\u2019s David Accam, who sliced through the Revolution defense, including Watson, before scoring to knot the score at 1-1.<\/p>\n

Watson would make amends for the defensive miscues by nodding in a Chris Tierney corner kick after Kei Kamara\u2019s attempt was redirected by a Fire defender right to him. The goal gave the Revolution the lead going into halftime and Teal Bunbury would ice it with a strike in the 85th<\/sup> minute to give the game its final score line.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever you are in the box on a set piece, if it\u2019s not a direct kick exactly to you, you\u2019re going to try to find a way to get on the end of stuff,\u201d said Watson. \u201cWe practice that in training. It was a training pitch play and Kei flicked it on. I was in the box, so I just moved towards the \u2018keeper. I feel it come in, so I just decide I\u2019m going to go for it. It just falls for me and I finish it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watson also scored the team\u2019s only goal in the previous round of the Open Cup and then scored the game clinching penalty kick as the defeated the Philadelphia Union in a shootout after a 1-1 draw on July 20. He followed that up with a game winner against Chicago in league play in a 1-0 victory on July 23.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were talking earlier, me and Steve Neumann, and he was saying just keep on scoring and saying in Chicago I scored a goal last time, so whatever, I\u2019m going to go for it,\u201d said Watson. \u201cYou know when you\u2019re in a good spot like that and you saw the ball just to finish it and before I even put it in the goal I was saying oh my god it\u2019s a goal again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watson will get a chance to continue his streak of scoring in big games when the Revolution head to the U.S. Open Cup Final on September 21 at the winner of Wednesday\u2019s match between FC Dallas and the Los Angeles Galaxy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Revolution defender scores another key goal, helping his team advance to U.S. Open Cup Final.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41382,"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":[4,3,25],"tags":[891,1460,888,892,1283],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Watsonfeature.jpg?fit=600%2C415","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43435"}],"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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43435"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43437,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43435\/revisions\/43437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}