The Revolution\u2019s preseason winning streak came to a halt tonight as the Columbus Crew defeated the New England Revolution\u00a03-1 in the opening match of the 2011 Atlanta Challenge Cup in Kennesaw, GA.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Revolution, now 4-1-0, were set back early\u00a0thanks to goals from Columbus\u2019 Bernardo Anor and Tom Heinemann.<\/p>\n
With\u00a0veterans Ousmane Dabo, Darrius Barnes, Ryan Cochrane, and Marco Perovic\u00a0all unavailable for the match, Revolution manager Steve Nicol was\u00a0given little choice but\u00a0to employ a fresh look across the pitch.\u00a0 The gap inside the back four created by absences to Barnes and Cochrane forced rookie defender A.J. Soares and newly-acquired Argentine defender Franco Coria to step in and play a full game side by side at the back line.<\/p>\n
But the Soares-Coria combination showed its inexperience as\u00a0the Revolution fell into an early,\u00a02-0 first half hole before 20 minutes.<\/p>\n
Although it was Coria who fired the game\u2019s first shot – a half volley off a Chris Tierney corner kick in the opening minutes –\u00a0 it was Columbus who opened up the scoring.\u00a0 In the 16th minute, a Robbie Rogers free kick found Anor in the penalty area, where\u00a0the striker\u00a0nodded the ball into the back of the net.<\/p>\n
A minute later, Columbus added a second when a back-pass from Soares was intercepted by Tom Heinemann who chipped Reis and scored.<\/p>\n
Faced with a two-goal deficit, the Revolution\u00a0desperately searched for offensive opportunities.\u00a0 Their best chance of the half came in the 33rd minute when Ryan Kinne hit a through ball into the path of Ilija Stolica.\u00a0\u00a0The Serbian striker\u00a0took a touch and opened up space for a shot, but his effort sailed high over the crossbar.<\/p>\n
Unlike their previous encounter with the Crew\u00a0last Sunday, Nicol did not make a single substitution at the interval, as Soares and Coria remained on the field for the second half.<\/p>\n
In the 53rd minute, Heinemann scored Columbus\u2019 third off a cross from Anor.\u00a0 Heinemann’s goal was his third of the week –\u00a0and all at the hands of the Revolution.<\/p>\n
New England\u00a0finally answered\u00a0in the 62nd minute when\u00a0 Zack Schilawski laid a ball off to Stolica, who fired a shot into the roof of the net for his first goal of preseason.<\/p>\n
Columbus nearly reclaimed their three-goal advantage in the 88th minute when\u00a0 Heinemann,\u00a0hunting for\u00a0the hat-trick, headed a Justin Meram cross off the post.<\/p>\n
The Revolution will have a chance to\u00a0end their preseason fixture list\u00a0on a\u00a0better note come Sunday afternoon when they take on the Houston Dynamo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Revolution dropped their first preseason match to the Crew in a tough 3-1 defeat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2250,"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":[4,3],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/revlogofeature.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\/3708"}],"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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3708"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3715,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3708\/revisions\/3715"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}