{"id":28326,"date":"2014-10-06T08:58:26","date_gmt":"2014-10-06T12:58:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=28326"},"modified":"2014-10-06T09:24:19","modified_gmt":"2014-10-06T13:24:19","slug":"heaps-rewarded-on-roll-of-dice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=28326","title":{"rendered":"Heaps Rewarded on Roll of Dice"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

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

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. \u2013 Jay Heaps has never been afraid to roll the dice when it comes to late-game substitutions during his three seasons at the helm, and Saturday\u2019s 2-1 win against the Crew was no exception.<\/p>\n

With the match level at one apiece near the hour mark, and the Crew pressing for the go-ahead, Heaps could\u2019ve gone conservative and made a defensive-minded substitute. A move to stabilize his squad, which was taking heavy pressure from Federico Higuain & Co, would have been the safest play.<\/p>\n

Instead, Heaps decided that, after watching his club fall to the Crew twice already this season, and with points at home vitally important this late in the season, he\u2019d send in Daigo Kobayashi for Scott Caldwell during the 59th minute to give his squad the best chance at securing the game-winner.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought we were pressing for the game, as well,\u201d Heaps said. \u201cBut at the same time, you\u2019re opening yourself up \u2013 at the same time they were going, we were going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Initially, it appeared that the extra push for goal would cost them dearly. Not only were the Crew bearing down on offense by tipping the possession scale close to 70 percent between the 60th and 70th minutes, but they nearly exposed the Revolution defense twice just after the hour.<\/p>\n

On a corner kick from Higuain in the 62nd minute, Hector Jimenez sent it into the box for Aaron Schoenfeld, who looked keen to score. But Bobby Shuttleworth came off his line to thwart the opportunity, and keep the match level. Seconds later, Schoenfeld made another bid for the go-ahead, but was denied once again by Shuttleworth.<\/p>\n

Five minutes later, though, it was the Revolution who put the Crew on their heels from a set piece situation. On a\u00a0Chris Tierney\u00a0free kick, Jermaine Jones headed it through to reclaim the lead that briefly belonged to the hosts early in the first half.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal that I scored was something that we practiced in training,\u201d Jones said. \u201cI saw the ball coming in the back and I tried to head it. I am happy that I scored the second goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Immediately after Jones scored the go-ahead, Heaps sent in Kevin Alston for Kelyn Rowe, and pushed Chris Tierney into the midfield. With the advantage theirs, there was no need to take any more risks.<\/p>\n

But even though the Crew would not go quietly into the night, especially after claiming a set of dangerous free kick opportunities late, the Revolution were able to walk away with the win in no small part due to their head coach\u2019s willingness to bet heavy on his offense.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have many ties for a reason, because we\u2019re going for it and unfortunately it costs us sometimes,\u201d Heaps said. \u201cBut tonight, we were rewarded.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jay Heaps went all in as the hour mark approached Saturday’s clash with the Crew, and watched his team score shortly after. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"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":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28326"}],"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=28326"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28336,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28326\/revisions\/28336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}