Sunday, June 4, 2017

Foxboro Continues To Be A Fortress For The Revs

While the Revs have yet to win a game on the road this season, they've yet to lose one at Gillette Stadium. Sure, Toronto was missing Jozy Altidore and Michael Bradley when they travelled down from Canada, but a win against the league's best team is still a win against the league's best team. 

After getting back to the friendly confines following a few days in the New York/New Jersey trash pit  area, the Revs were back to what is essentially a first-choice lineup, even after many were playing just Wednesday. Coming in, I was worried that fatigued would set in, and that could spell certain doom when facing Sebastian Giovinco. Cody Cropper was back in net, Tierney-Delamea-Angoua-Farrell manned the backline, Gershon Koffie (more on him later) got the start in the midfield with Scott Caldwell, Kelyn Rowe and Diego Fagundez, and Kei Kamara paired with Lee Nguyen in the attack.

Benjamin Angoua opened his MLS goal account with a header off of a corner kick.

It looked like Lee was trying to find Delamea on a run towards the middle of the box, but Angoua literally stood still and lost his marker, so wither Delamea lettuce ball go or he just didn't jump for it, but it fell in the perfect spot for Benji to rise up and put a powerful header in the back of the net.

Diego made it 2-0 on a great shot.

Agudelo, back from injury as a sub, with a nice turn to feed the Uruguayan youngster, and he puts a curler upper left.

Really quick, we got an Angry Jay sighting...


Swagudelo finished the night off with 5 minutes left in regular time after quite the sequence.

Phenomenal run by Juan, perfect through ball from Lee, the pass over to Deigo, and then post, post, Colombian head, back of the net. Just how they drew it up.

There were two Revs goals called back for offside, here's one...


Just blatantly onside. Sad! Jail time for the referees!

And we wasted a few chances just trying to do too much in the box and holding the ball rather than putting a shot on net and looking for a rebound. It really could have been a goal-fest, because between our missed chances and the couple of shots Toronto put off the post it could have been something like a 6-3 game.

In the end, a 3-0 win is just as good, especially since clean sheets can pay massive dividends when it comes to tie breakers with goal differential.

I was surprised at how quiet Giovinco was in this one to. I don't watch enough Toronto FC matches to know if he really needs Jozy and Bradley in order to thrive, but he's easily one of the best, most dynamic and most exciting players in MLS and the Revs held him in check all night. Delamea and Angoua were solid defensively stopping him, and Caldwell and Koffie in the midfield were superb in slowing him down even before he got to the backline.

Like I said earlier, more on Koffie: re-signing him is making Mike Burns look like a goddamn genius. He's familiar with the team and the league, is a quality player who only adds to our depth and talent in the middle, and he can now step in and make a huge impact as a starter again with news that Xavier Kouassi will miss 4 to 6 weeks with a hamstring problem picked up just before his game-tying goal against NYCFC on Wednesday. It sucks because Kouassi has been rock solid this year and has shown us why he was a DP signing that was hyped up by the front office. Without another general like Koffie, I think we'd be feeling the loss of Kouassi a lot harder than we are or will.

Man of the Match

Diego Fagundez was by far our most dangerous offensive player this year and last night, bagging a goal, basically assisting Agudelos, and being a threat all night. Go Diego Go! indeed. 

Revs 3-0 Toronto. SORREY!



Next up is the Open Cup against Rochester Rhinos (where we have loaned players before) on the 14th. June 17 is the next league game, at home against Chicago Fire. It should be noted that going forward, 4 of the next 6 league games will be at home, where we do not lose. 

One last thing before I end this one, shoutout to Juan Agudelo and especially Kelyn Rowe for being named to the USMNT 40-man roster for the Gold Cup. Not sure if wither will make the final roster, but it's nice for them to be recognized fro having great seasons, especially Rowe. This is really his first look from US Soccer, and he deserves it. It's disappointing that Fagundez is cap-tied to Uruguay now, since he could do wonders for the US and is amazing form right now. Uruguay just dent seem keen on using him going forward, which is sad because he's a really good player. I was surprised not to see Lee in the US roster either. But I guess it doesn't hurt to have him be well-rested as we near the dreaded and expected summer slump. 

Anyway, that got off the rails for a second. Good W. Cue the music!
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)