Three times this season the New York Red Bulls have scored four or more goals in a match. With legendary French striker Thierry Henry and skilled and experienced American forward Kenny Cooper up top, it\u2019s not hard to see why.<\/p>\n
With that in mind, any team venturing into Red Bull Arena would know the importance of a fast start. For the New England Revolution, however, taking the initiative proved problematic as New York had the visitors on the back foot from the opening whistle.<\/p>\n
For a young team like the Revs, going into a fantastic soccer specific stadium like Red Bull Arena and facing off against the likes of Henry may have provided some pre-match jitters as the Revs gave up an early goal in a 1-0 loss.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a little bit of confidence,\u201d said Benny Feilhaber after the match. \u201cWe kind of come into the game thinking, \u2018it\u2019s New York, it\u2019s a big team, they\u2019ve got Henry, a nice stadium\u2019 and then we\u2019re down 1-0. Then we realize \u2018ok, we can play with these guys\u2019, then we start playing and we have the better of the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what the reason is exactly for it, but we\u2019ve just got to be confident of our abilities and going out there and playing against each and every team and trying to get results,\u201d he continued. \u201cI think [Saturday] we played well for a majority of the game, but we weren\u2019t smart enough and confident enough and obviously didn\u2019t put away some of our big chances when it mattered.\u201d<\/p>\n
The idea that the team could\u2019ve been star struck, however, was one captain Shalrie Joseph was quick to dismiss, despite having some young teammates.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t get star struck,\u201d said Joseph. \u201cEven though we\u2019ve got a lot of young guys; AJ [Soares] is in his second year, [Stephen McCarthy] is in his second year, Kevin [Alston] is in his [fourth] year. They\u2019re never star struck no matter who they play. They\u2019re that confident and they know that we prepare all week for whoever we\u2019re going to play. It was just a slow start and we can\u2019t afford to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alternatively, what could\u2019ve been working against the Revs was the two week gap between games. While the time off was needed for several Revs to recover from lingering injuries, it may have left the team a bit rusty at the start of the game.<\/p>\n
Of course that possibility wasn\u2019t ignored by head coach Jay Heaps, who certainly experienced plenty of gaps between games as a player. The first year head coach had hoped to prepare his team for that possibility.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe prepared for that so I hope that wasn\u2019t it,\u201d said Heaps. \u201cBut, it was something, you could say whatever you want it was. It was bad, it was worse than rust to start. And then the second half you saw the game open up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whatever the reason was, it was an unacceptable start for a team in need of results as it looks to put an end to its current losing streak, which now extends to three games. Beating New York was always going to be a tough task, but putting themselves in an early hole made it all the more difficult.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s no coincidence that in the two matches the Revs have won this year, they\u2019ve jumped on their opponents early and grabbed early leads.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got to look at ourselves in the mirror and realize that it\u2019s important that we start off hard especially being on the road and against a team like New York that has so much firepower and attacking weapons,\u201d said Joseph. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to be able to start off with that intensity and start off right. We didn\u2019t do that tonight, but as the game progressed you could tell we were the better team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet as much as Heaps drives in the importance of fast starts in practice, game day situations are hard to emulate. More games will continue to build chemistry, but, according to Feilhaber, the team also needs the confidence that comes with results if they are to get off to fast starts against star powered clubs like New York in the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it comes with results,\u201d said Feilhaber. \u201cThe more you get results the more confidence and then you start learning how to win those games.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Revs won\u2019t have any of the same excuses when they face the Colorado Rapids at Gillette Stadium on Wednesday. A quick turnaround should eliminate the possibility of rust, while the Rapids squad is devoid of any big name stars. Add in home field advantage and there will be no reason for the Revs to get off to another slow start.<\/p>\n
How the Revs react on Wednesday to the disappointment of Saturday\u2019s loss will be an early test of the true character of Heaps\u2019 young team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Whether it was rust or being star struck, the Revs know they can\u2019t afford to start slow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4835,"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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[24,3],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/josephfeature5.jpg?fit=490%2C225&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11484"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11484"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11493,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11484\/revisions\/11493"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}