{"id":25233,"date":"2014-04-25T12:24:34","date_gmt":"2014-04-25T16:24:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=25233"},"modified":"2014-04-25T12:27:07","modified_gmt":"2014-04-25T16:27:07","slug":"preview-nevskc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=25233","title":{"rendered":"Preview: #NEvSKC"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

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

The New England Revolution will be out for revenge this Saturday night when they play host to defending MLS champion Sporting Kansas City in a 7:30 p.m. match.<\/p>\n

New England finished the 2013 regular season with a flourish, going 4-0-2 to make the playoffs for the first time since 2009. It looked like the dream would run continue after winning a first leg Eastern Conference semifinal against Kansas City, even leading on aggregate as late as 12 minutes from full time in the second leg.<\/p>\n

But Sporting K.C. went on to score in the 79th minute and again in overtime, dashing the Revs\u2019 MLS Cup hopes and sending the club back into a slump to start 2014.<\/p>\n

Now, in their first game of meaning since then (they played to a 0-0 tie in the Revs\u2019 preseason opener), it looks like Eastern Conference leader Kansas City (3-1-2, 11 points) might have the upper hand again, with\u00a0Kansas City\u00a0displaying its typical wizardry in a 4-0 win over Montreal last week and the Revolution likely coming in undermanned.<\/p>\n

Center back and team captain Jose Goncalves (right quad strain) has been ruled out this weekend, while playmaker Kelyn Rowe (left hamstring strain) was listed as questionable on the New England\u2019s weekly injury report.<\/p>\n

A third difference-maker, Diego Fagundez left last weekend\u2019s 1-1 draw against Chicago at halftime with what coach Jay Heaps reported as back tightness. Regular left back Chris Tierney, provider of some of New England\u2019s best service, didn\u2019t enter last week until halftime, after missing the previous week\u2019s match against Houston with a hip injury. Neither Tierney nor Fagundez were listed on the injury report.<\/p>\n

The Revs will be further shorthanded with the absence of wing back Kevin Alston, who was red-carded against Chicago after handling the ball in the box in the 90th minute. Alston was on his best run of form since\u00a0his leukemia diagnosis\u00a0in April 2013, scoring two weeks ago vs. Houston\u00a0and drawing a penalty at Chicago last week.<\/p>\n

Despite New England (2-3-2, 8 points) coming in dinged up, there is reason for optimism.\u00a0The Revs are 4-0-2 in their last six games at the Gillette Stadium, including\u00a0last season\u2019s playoff win over Saturday’s adversaries.<\/p>\n

New England also played Sporting in a windswept 0-0 tie at Gillette Stadium earlier in 2013.<\/p>\n

The Revs have yet to allow a goal at home this season, but it may be a tall task to keep that\u00a0streak intact\u00a0as forward Dom Dwyer enters Saturday having scored four goals in\u00a0Kansas City’s\u00a0last four matches, including a brace last week.<\/p>\n

With Andrew Farrell\u2019s likely shift to center back, New England\u2019s flanks may be again left more exposed than coach Jay Heaps would like.<\/p>\n

The obvious storyline up front continues to be former Kansas City star Teal Bunbury\u2019s inability to net despite going the distance in all seven games so far. The microscope will be on New England\u2019s lone striker even more so against his former team, which jettisoned the 24-year-old Bunbury to the Revs back in February.<\/p>\n

Whether Heaps elects to continue with his preferred 4-5-1 formation, or finds a way to take some pressure off Bunbury, should provide some insight into whether the Revolution view his play to date as a tough-luck start or as general ineffectiveness.<\/p>\n

New England will hope it can at least control the middle of the field as the central trio of Andy Dorman, Lee Nguyen and Daigo Kobayashi has been stout so far.<\/p>\n

The Revs will likely see a pair of familiar faces in Benny Feilhaber and Seth Sinovic, both New England outcasts who have thrived in coach Peter Vermes\u2019 high-pressure system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A rematch of last year’s conference semis is on tap for Saturday when the Revs host Sporting K.C. at Gillette Stadium. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":22844,"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":[213,142,786,115,49,326,1274,68,135],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/AF-1.bmp","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25233"}],"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\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25233"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25238,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25233\/revisions\/25238"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}