{"id":44541,"date":"2017-03-09T22:44:11","date_gmt":"2017-03-10T03:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=44541"},"modified":"2017-03-11T12:58:58","modified_gmt":"2017-03-11T17:58:58","slug":"the-warm-up-nevorl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=44541","title":{"rendered":"The Warm Up: #NEvORL"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

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

Who:<\/strong> Revolution (0-1-0, 0 points) vs. Orlando City SC (1-0-0, 3 points)
\nWhat:<\/strong> Week 2 of the MLS regular season; Home Opener for the Revolution
\nWhere:<\/strong> Gillette Stadium, Foxboro, Massachusetts
\nWhen:<\/strong> Saturday, Mar. 11 at 2:00pm ET
\nWatch:<\/strong> CSN New England, MLS Live, Direct Kick
\nWhistle:<\/strong> Jorge Gonzalez \u2013 Head Referee; Andrew Bigelow\/Jose Da Silva \u2013 Assistant Referees; Alex Chilowicz \u2013 4th Referee.
\nWeather:<\/strong> Low-mid 20s, Partially Sunny, Winds of 15-25 mph<\/p>\n

Scouting the Opposition:<\/strong><\/p>\n

-Orlando City enters their third season in league with the\u00a0hopes of clinching their first playoff berth. Orlando finished 2016 in eighth place in the Eastern Conference with a 9-11-14 record and 41 points, one behind the New England Revolution.<\/p>\n

-The Lions enter the season without Kevin Molino, who was traded to Minnesota after scoring 11 goals and notching a team-high\u00a0eight assists. Brek Shea, who made 27 appearances for Orlando City in 2016, was also traded in the offseason.<\/p>\n

-Key additions were made as well for Orlando, particularly along their newly constructed defense. Will Johnson (who played right back in Week 1), Danny Toia, and Jonathan Spector are all acquired\u00a0during the winter,\u00a0and all three started last week, joining former reserve defender Jose Aja to form the team\u2019s back line. The defense needed a severe makeover as Orlando City conceded an MLS-high 60 times in 2016.<\/p>\n

-Orlando started their season defeating head coach Jason Kreis\u2019 former team, NYCFC, 1-0 in the debut of their new stadium, Orlando City Stadium. Cyle Larin, who has led the team in scoring in each of the team\u2019s first two seasons, scored the match\u2019s only goal in the 15th minute heading in a cross from Giles Barnes. Goalkeeper Joe Bednik played exceptionally well, saving seven shots to keep a clean sheet.<\/p>\n

-Orlando City played a standard 4-4-2 formation, shifting away from the 4-2-3-1 formation they played primarily last season.<\/p>\n

-The team will be without Kaka, who was removed 11 minutes last Saturday with a hamstring injury, which will keep him out for six weeks. Giles Barnes, who was subbed for Kaka last week and assisted on the Larin goal, is likely to be Kaka\u2019s replacement this week.<\/p>\n

-Despite the positive result against NYCFC, Orlando has some cause for concern coming into Saturday\u2019s match with the Revolution. Orlando only mustered a total of seven shots, and Larin\u2019s goal was the only shot on target. It has yet to be seen how reliable the Orlando offense will be without Kevin Molino, and playing without Kaka is an additional blow.<\/p>\n

Recent History:<\/strong><\/p>\n

-The short-lived series between Orlando and New England was been very even with\u00a0each teams\u00a0boasting a\u00a0victory to go along with three draws.<\/p>\n

-The five matchups between the teams have seen 19 goals, and every game has seen at least three goals scored.<\/p>\n

-Orlando won the last match, a 3-1 victory\u00a0at Camping World Stadium\u00a0last July.<\/p>\n

-The Revolution are unbeaten at home against Orlando in the small, two-game sample size. New England won 3-0 in September 2015 and drew 2-2 last April.<\/p>\n

3 Things to Know:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1) Be on your best behavior (again):<\/strong> Last Saturday\u2019s referee, Jose Carlos Rivero averaged 4.17 yellow cards per game, second highest in the MLS in 2016. Only this Saturday\u2019s referee, Jorge Gonzalez, handed out more yellows, averaging 4.7 yellow cards per game last season.<\/p>\n

2) Nguyen questionable:<\/strong> Lee Nguyen is currently nursing a right ankle injury that may hold him out of Saturday\u2019s action. He\u2019s listed as questionable on the injury report.<\/p>\n

3) No reunion this weekend:<\/strong> Orlando City will be without former Revolution defender Kevin Alston, who has been ruled out with a hamstring injury. Alston appeared in two games against the Revs last season, but was an unused substitute in the lone Orlando-New England game at Gillette in 2016. Orlando is not scheduled to play another match in New England this season, so it will likely be another year until Alston makes his potential return to the Gillette Stadium turf.<\/p>\n

Score prediction:<\/strong> The injury to Kaka will hurt Orlando, who were already trying to find their footing on offense without Kevin Molino. Orlando City will rely on Cyle Larin to get them on the board, but the offense is not as dangerous as years past. Meanwhile, the Revs return to Foxboro where they put up a solid 9-4-4 record in 2016. Nguyen may not be 100% and the weather may not be perfect, but the Revolution should have enough offense to overcome a depleted Orlando City. 2-1 New England.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everything thing you need to know about the Revs home opening tilt against Orlando City. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":44542,"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":true,"_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":[1109,888],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Rowe-1.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\/44541"}],"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\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44541"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44546,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44541\/revisions\/44546"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}