{"id":21159,"date":"2013-08-10T12:17:02","date_gmt":"2013-08-10T16:17:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=21159"},"modified":"2013-08-31T09:51:39","modified_gmt":"2013-08-31T13:51:39","slug":"five-questions-revolution-at-sporting-k-c-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=21159","title":{"rendered":"Five Questions: Revolution at Sporting K.C."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Revolution<\/a>

Revolution striker Juan Agudelo signed a future contract with Stoke City earlier this week. (Photo: Chris Aduama\/aduama.com)<\/p><\/div>\n

Six days\u00a0after the Seattle Sounders signed Clint Dempsey to the richest\u00a0deal ever given to an American player, the New England Revolution watched Juan Agudelo\u00a0ink a future contract with Stoke City. But did it have to happen that way?<\/p>\n

On one hand, Agudelo’s deal with an EPL club was entirely expected. Agudelo has never been shy\u00a0when it comes to\u00a0his European ambitions. Like so many\u00a0talented players across the globe,\u00a0Agudelo\u00a0had serious aspirations\u00a0to play in one of the best leagues in the world. So when the Revolution traded for the 20-year-old striker in May,\u00a0it was\u00a0a forgone conclusion\u00a0that Agudelo was bound for Europe when his current contract expired at the end of the year.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the similar conclusions were being drawn about Dempsey’s immediate future only a week ago. Many assumed that he’d likely stay in the EPL, either with Tottenham or possibly with Liverpool, depending upon which rumors you subscribed to. Any thoughts that, arguably, the best American player at the moment would entertain the possibility of coming back\u00a0to MLS in his prime – and\u00a0a year before the World Cup, at that\u00a0–\u00a0would’ve been met with ridicule and derision. Then, with the single stroke of a pen, the thinking changed –\u00a0dramatically<\/em>.<\/p>\n

There were three important lessons learned from the Dempsey megadeal. One, we discovered that Dempsey, even in his prime, was open to coming back to MLS as early as last summer. Two, money is a very powerful motivator, and even an American soccer player holding the highest aspirations isn’t immune to its influence. Three, the league has shown that it will spend its own money to sign an American player.<\/p>\n

So what does all this have to do with Agudelo’s situation?<\/p>\n

It’s conceivable that, prior to signing with Stoke, Agudelo\u00a0would’ve been open to staying in MLS – specifically with the Revolution –\u00a0for three more years\u00a0at the right price. We don’t know what’s in his heart of hearts, but as we learned with Dempsey’s signing, it’s entirely possible he would’ve re-signed for a seven-figure sum.\u00a0Heck, a\u00a0three-year deal would allow him to try his hand at EPL action at age 23, the same age Dempsey was when he signed with Fulham in 2007.<\/p>\n

Of course, the above scenario rests entirely on the willingness of the Revolution organization to offer Agudelo – or any player – that kind of money. As we’ve learned over the years, the eBay logo-emblazoned water tower next to Gillette Stadium isn’t filled with money to spend on soccer players. And the odds of an organization that has never paid\u00a0seven figures\u00a0for a player\u00a0to suddenly change course and offer many millions to a talented\u00a020-year-old, no matter how\u00a0good he is, are too minute to calculate.<\/p>\n

Now, this shouldn’t be construed as an indictment of Michael Burns, Jay Heaps or Brian Bilello. They can only work with the budget they’re given. We don’t have telepathy, but it’s not hard to imagine that if Burns\u00a0could\u00a0cut a $15 million check to Agudelo for three more years of his time, it seems entirely possible that he would do just that. But we all know that fantasy isn’t reality.<\/p>\n

In an ideal world, the Revolution would’ve made\u00a0the bold statement they’ve failed to make since, well, forever, and signed Agudelo for Patriots money. Agudelo would’ve continued along his career arc in New England instead of Stoke, where only the thing that’s attractive are the WAGs. The Revolution would’ve kept their young and talented attacking corps intact, and its stands to reason that they would become a perennial playoff contender. More so, it would signal that the organization is dead serious about winning rather than trying to play Moneyball. And who knows? Maybe the league would offer them a few bucks to do so. Hey, this is in\u00a0an ideal world, after all.<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, what’s a few million\u00a0to an organization that routinely spends\u00a0seven figures on backup\u00a0American football players? So what if that that money\u00a0could go\u00a0toward a stadium. Oh wait…nevermind.<\/p>\n

But what’s past is past. We now look ahead to the future, and do it by asking these five questions ahead of Saturday’s contest at Sporting Park.<\/p>\n

1. How can the Revolution avoid a slow start?<\/strong> Well, it would probably help if they didn’t hit the panic button right after the opening whistle. Seriously. In D.C., the Revolution hurried both short passes and long balls alike, and it they found themselves in a ditch in the eighth minute. Last week, it took less than two minutes for Jose Goncalves to inexplicably\u00a0dribble right into a turnover, which led to the only goal of the game. Note to Revolution: it’s time to stop overthinking the first 10 minutes. Yes, it’s smart to string together some passes on the ground and play some route one ball, too. But don’t let the gameplan get in the way of the goal, as they say. Keeping\u00a0an opponent on\u00a0its heels is always the key. They have\u00a0stick to what works, and early in the game, what has worked\u00a0are short, intelligent passes.\u00a0Not movement for the\u00a0sake of it, but smart movement.\u00a0Sure,\u00a0it’s\u00a0partly\u00a0mental, as some of the world’s best footballers\u00a0admit to regular bouts of pre-game butterflies and\/or\u00a0blowing chunkage due to nerves. And that’s OK. The real hill the Revolution face in getting more from their starts is not allowing any nerves or second thoughts to get in the way of playing smart soccer in the opening moments.<\/p>\n

2. What can the Revolution learn from the Red Bulls win over Sporting K.C. last week?<\/strong> Plenty. For starters, we saw\u00a0the talented\u00a0Red Bulls wisely sit back and allow K.C. to exert their trademark high pressure. And for many moments, it looked like it was going to be an epic fail on Mike Petke’s part. Yes, the Red Bulls allowed their opponents to fire a season-high 27 shots, and were\u00a0supremely lucky that\u00a0K.C.’s finishing was about the same as the Revolution’s last week against Toronto (too soon? too soon?).\u00a0But the Red Bulls defense nevertheless\u00a0absorbed the pressure, then rechanneled it back at K.C. by exploiting all those wide open\u00a0passing lanes they like to leave behind them.\u00a0In midst of that, Petke employed Lloyd Sam to come on in the latter stages, and his energy off the bench helped the guests surge – or escape, depending upon your allegiances – to a 3-2 win. While it wasn’t the cleanest, nor the most well-played game in Red Bulls\/MetroStars history, they should be applauded for accomplishing\u00a0one very, very important thing to get three points: they finished their shots. Plain and simple.\u00a0They only collected five of them, yet they scored on three. OK, New York and New England\u00a0may not\u00a0employ\u00a0identical formations, nor does the Revolution have the same world-class\u00a0attacking players at their disposal.\u00a0But that shouldn’t stop Saturday’s guests from adopting a similarly\u00a0methodical and disciplined approach when they walk onto the pitch at Sporting Park.<\/p>\n

3. Will Kelyn Rowe return to the lineup?<\/strong> Many were shocked to see the grease man of the attack get an assignment to the bench last week against Toronto, but Juan Toja wasn’t exactly a slouch\u00a0during his\u00a0hour on\u00a0the pitch. In the first half,\u00a0the creative Colombian\u00a0connected with the forwards and helped move the ball along nicely along the edge of attacking edge of the middle third. Yet, by the second half,\u00a0he and the attack quickly lost rhythm, and Rowe was brought on to sharpen the form in front of the net. While he wasn’t\u00a0quite the\u00a0firestarter Heaps had hoped for,\u00a0Rowe did drop a perfect ball right on the doortsep for Lee Nguyen, who nearly squeezed it through in the 90th minute, and showed a propensity to put the ball in the right places at times leading up to that near-assist. All in all, both\u00a0Toja and Rowe proved their worth on Sunday. But given K.C.’s physical approach and high pressure, it wouldn’t be a shock to see the smaller and less refined Rowe come off the bench again.<\/p>\n

4. Can the league’s toughest defense shut down the K.C.’s high-pressure approach?<\/strong> It’s going to be a battle royale in Blue Hell. Ding-ding-ding-ding! The New England Revolution, at 8-8-6, with\u00a030 points to\u00a0its name,\u00a0marches into this match with the stingiest defense in MLS! Sporting\u00a0Kansas City, at 10-7-6, with 36 points,\u00a0enters\u00a0into the contest with\u00a0one of the best offenses in the league! Let’s get readyyyyy to rumbllllleeeee! OK,\u00a0so maybe\u00a0we’re hyping things a bit here. After all, the aforementioned defense has only one shutout in their last five, and has conceded early goals to the likes of Toronto and D.C.\u00a0Meanwhile the\u00a0offense in question followed up a 1-0 loss vs. Montreal on Jul. 27\u00a0with a wretchedly futile offensive performance\u00a0against New York. In other words, what could unfold might very well be 90 minutes in which the only highlights might be tifo-related. In fact, it may boil down to who makes the most egregious mistake. Earlier this year, the clubs battled to a 0-0 draw in a windswept affair at Gillette Stadium. But if there has to be a winner this time, the edge has to go the hosts, who with the Sporting Park partisans behind them, will probably find a way to avoid a third straight loss.<\/p>\n

5. What must the Revolution be aware of given the atmosphere at Sporting Park?<\/strong> After Wednesday’s training, Heaps candidly\u00a0remarked that one of the toughest challenges a guest faces\u00a0at\u00a0one of the best places to watch a soccer game according to Yelp! \u00a0isn’t so much the crowd itself, but its influence on the officiating. Last year, we saw Silviu Petruscu inexplicably issue a straight red card\u00a0to Stephen McCarthy in the 15th minute on a play that likely warranted a caution, if that, and the game circled the drain for the Revolution shortly thereafter. This week, Baldomero Toledo, the man who’s made\u00a0the stiff-armed penalty call\u00a0an art form, will be overseeing this match.\u00a0True, the\u00a0Revolution must play a smart game against Sporting K.C. regardless of the referee. But they have to be even wiser not to let Toledo’s happy whistle hurt them, especially inside their own end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Revolution head into Sporting Park eyeing an important result. So what questions do they face going into the contest?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21171,"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":[159,427,1304,1300,49,1274,63,68,555,500],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/JA-10.png?fit=494%2C258&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21159"}],"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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21159"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21181,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21159\/revisions\/21181"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}