{"id":41282,"date":"2016-03-09T18:25:42","date_gmt":"2016-03-09T23:25:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=41282"},"modified":"2016-03-09T18:25:42","modified_gmt":"2016-03-09T23:25:42","slug":"fitness-issues-kept-caldwell-out-of-xi-in-houston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=41282","title":{"rendered":"Fitness Issues Kept Caldwell Out of XI in Houston"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo

Photo credit: Chris Aduama\/aduamaphotography.com<\/p><\/div>\n

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. \u2013 By its very nature, the MLS preseason is an unreliable indicator of what\u2019s to come at the start of the regular season what with the irregular lineups, unsigned commodities, and at times, unannounced scrimmages.<\/p>\n

But even though the six weeks leading up to the start of the Revolution season weren\u2019t the most insightful from an outsider’s perspective, coach Jay Heaps did take stock in at least one takeaway going into Sunday\u2019s First Kick clash at Houston: Scott Caldwell\u2019s health.<\/p>\n

Caldwell may have played in six of the club\u2019s seven preseason contests, but according to Heaps, the fourth-year midfielder struggled to get fit this winter, a development that kept him from starting Sunday\u2019s season opener in Houston.<\/p>\n

\u201cScotty missed a little bit of time in the preseason,\u201d Heaps said on Wednesday. \u201cHe had an injection before the preseason started, and was building his fitness in the preseason, then got an illness, so in terms of reps, we felt that was a good physical lineup for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Caldwell, who started 32 games last year, didn’t see his name on the lineup, he still managed to find a way to make an impact.<\/p>\n

After Kelyn Rowe picked up a knock during the first half \u2013 an injury Heaps described on Wednesday as \u201ca bruise to the midsection\u201d \u2013 Caldwell was summoned from the dugout to get ready for the start of the second half.<\/p>\n

In 45 minutes of action, Caldwell connected on 29 of 31 passes, and helped the Revolution begin to win the possession battle after the Dynamo dominated it during the first half.<\/p>\n

Even though he wasn\u2019t at 100 percent fitness, the Braintree, Mass. native helped settle the game down for the Revolution, whom Heaps said had become unorganized shortly after Diego Fagundez\u2019s third-minute goal altered the team\u2019s collective approach.<\/p>\n

\u201c(He) did exactly what Scotty does, which is play quickly, and find passes,\u201d Heaps said. \u201cHe was 96 percent on his passing, and for us, completely took the game from a physical battle to a \u2018(game) play\u2019- type scenario.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scott Caldwell’s fitness level was the reason why he wasn’t among the starters for Sunday’s season opener. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41283,"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":[891,115,888,191,892],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Scott-1-2.png?fit=600%2C416&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41282"}],"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=41282"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41284,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41282\/revisions\/41284"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}