Urgency in the Air Following Draw
- Updated: April 28, 2016
Photo credit: Kari Heistad/capturedimages.biz
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – The New England Revolution are in the midst of three games in eight days. They were coming off a 3-0 loss to their Eastern Conference rivals, D.C. United and welcomed the defending MLS Cup Champion Portland Timbers into Gillette Stadium for a crucial mid-week match on Wednesday.
After fighting for nearly 90 minutes, the Revolution were able to get a late equalizer on a Portland own goal to work one point out of the match in a 1-1 draw. While it was not the prettiest match, and the locals only came away with one point at home, they nevertheless responded in a near must-win situation to pull to 1-2-6 on the season.
Things do not get any easier for New England, however. Coming off the hard-fought draw, they welcome fourth-place Orlando City SC to Gillette Stadium on Saturday. It will be the second time in 14 days that these two sides square off, but the urgency will be turned up for this match.
The Revs worked to a 2-2 draw with Orlando City on Apr. 17, but realize that the result needs to be better this time around.
“I feel like three games in such a short period of time, you’ve gotta get at least four points,” New England forward Juan Agudelo said following the match. “Good thing is that we have a quick turn around. We’ve just gotta recover our bodies so that we’re ready for Saturday against a good Orlando team.”
The sentiment around the New England locker room was that they would have to move on from Wednesday’s draw quickly, knowing that their upcoming Eastern Conference battle will be very important.
“Yeah, nothing we can do about that game now,” defender Andrew Farrell said when asked about getting over the draw and preparing for Saturday. “It’s two points that we lost, but we will take the point that we won. So, Orlando, has a good team coming in, we’ve gotta focus on that.”
The Revs turn their focus to Orlando, but will be at less than full strength on Saturday. After having both Chris Tierney and Teal Bunbury miss Wednesday’s game with injuries, the Revolution lost Charlie Davies in the 35th minute to an injury, depleting an already short-handed forward group. They also had eight players take the full 90-minute workload, including regulars Je-Vaughn Watson, Andrew Farrell, Jose Goncalves, Gershon Koffie, Kelyn Rowe, Diego Fagundez and Lee Nguyen.
Even with that workload, head coach Jay Heaps was confident his team would be ready for the quick turn around.
“It’s early enough [in the season] that guys are fit, and ready to go,” Heaps said following the match. “So we’ll make the assessments later tonight. I think once we wash this one and get our re-gens in and training in tomorrow and the next day we’ll assess it a little better. But, I have no hesitation our players will be ready for Saturday.”
With the urgency turned up, and maximum points becoming a greater premium with each passing home clash, Saturday will surely test the mettle of a Revolution squad that’s already allowed left too many points on the table through the first quarter of the season.
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