After pocketing four much-needed points on the road in New York and Montreal, the New England Revolution will look to strengthen their postseason push\u00a0by grabbing\u00a0three more against the Columbus Crew in Saturday’s home finale.<\/p>\n
Last week, the Revs pulled off a stunning 1-0 victory last week in Montreal after previously tied the Red Bulls at the Red Bull Arena the week before. The Crew saw their own postseason ambitions put on hold after a tough 0-1 loss last week in Kansas City. Prior to last week’s setback, the Crew’s last loss came over a month ago against the same Kansas City side on Sept. 7.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0longtime conference rivals\u00a0last played each other exactly\u00a0three months ago in Columbus when New England received a pair of late goals from Jose Goncalves and\u00a0Diego Fagundez to claim their first win\u00a0at Crew Stadium\u00a0since 2009.\u00a0Saturday’s match will be the 59th regular season meeting between the two clubs with Columbus holding the 29-18-11 edge. The Crew have posted a 7-7-4 mark against the Revs at Gillette Stadium.<\/p>\n
New England\u00a0currently sits a single point\u00a0under the red line, while Columbus is only five points away from the\u00a0fifth and final\u00a0spot in the Eastern Conference. Both sides need\u00a0three points on Saturday\u00a0to keep their playoff hopes alive after New York Red Bulls and Sporting KC already claiming the top two spots.<\/p>\n
New England will be thin\u00a0in the attack\u00a0with the loss of Frenchman striker Saer Sene, who is out for the rest of the year after a ankle surgery on his left foot, and while\u00a0Lee Nguyen is suspended for the match for caution accumulation.<\/p>\n
Revolution coach Jay Heaps will likely plug either Andy Dorman or\u00a0Clyde Simms\u00a0alongside Kelyn Rowe and Scott Caldwell in the heart of New England\u2019s attack. With the exception of a minor\u00a0injury sustained by Frederico Higuain last week in Kansas, Brian Bliss\u2019 side has no injury concerns, \u00a0and no players on suspension or\u00a0international duty.<\/p>\n
With only two matches remaining for the regular season, New England will need\u00a0to win both\u00a0in order to control their own destiny – a destiny that could see them clinch their first postseason berth since 2009.\u00a0But anything short of a win\u00a0on Saturday could all but\u00a0end the Revolution’s\u00a0season if\u00a0\u00a0Houston beats New York and\u00a0Chicago\u00a0secures a win against\u00a0Toronto this weekend.<\/p>\n
While the Revs are looking to win both of their remaining match against the Crew, Columbus Crew\u2019s midfielder Dominic Oduro believes his side has what it takes to get maximum points in its final two games.<\/p>\n
“New England is really beatable at the end of the day,” Oduro said. “We are a good team. We can make that happen. We have to give ourselves that chance. Hopefully the other games go the way we want them to go. We have to stay positive, focus on the next two games at hand.”<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s match will be the first leg of a home and home series between the Revolution and the Crew. The teams will meet\u00a0in the\u00a0season finale\u00a0Sunday, Oct. 27, at Columbus Crew Stadium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Revolution continue their quest for a playoff spot on Saturday against the Crew. (Photo: Kari Heistad\/capturedimages.biz)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12944,"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":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/ajcrew1.png?fit=472%2C234&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22526"}],"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=22526"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22532,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22526\/revisions\/22532"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}