Saturday, March 3, 2018

And The Revs Kick Off The 2018 Season In A Way Only They Can


Remember when I said that the renewed confidence in this team may be baseless? Well, they did wonders for that statement tonight in Philly. 

The excitement was high for this match, the first of the Brad Friedel Era. Big Baller Brad rolled out an interesting 4-2-3-1 lineup for Game #1. Cody Cropper stayed in Boston with an illness, but according to the Revs broadcast, it wouldn't have mattered if he was healthy because Matt Turner would have gotten the start tonight no matter what. Kelyn Rowe and Krizstian Nemeth both started on the bench as the attack was spearheaded by Juan Agudelo with Diego Fagundez underneath him at the CAM spot. Flanking him were Cristian Penilla and Teal Bunbury, who was solid in preseason. Scott Caldwell and Wilfried Zahibo paired in the deep midfield, while the backline consisted of what will likely be the Revs #1 option all season (just not for next game, we'll get there buddy,,,). Andrew Farrell, Antonio Delamea, Claude Dielna and Gabriel Somi. As we expected it was Dielna with the captains armband. 

Early on things were very even. Penilla showed his speed and started a breakout that ended with Juan getting a close shot saved and then Diego having his effort deflected as well. Teal Bunbury had a good chance on a corner that he mishit with the left foot and Diego made a run through the middle that would have been a 1 v 1 with Andre Blake, but Juan couldn't find the space for a pass. Juan had a breakaway attempt that was snuffed out with a great solo tackle. It is far too early to be worried about finishing though. 

Everything shifted in the 24th minute.
Toni brings down CJ Sapong on a clear goal chance and gets shown red. So before we even get to halftime of Game #1, we're down to 10 men and will be without last seasons MVP for the home opener next week. This forced Brad into a move, in which he took off Penilla for Jalil Anibaba in order to keep four at the back. Right before half it was Union young boy Anthony Fontana, just 18 years old, opened the scoring.
The final nail in the coffin came courtesy of CJ Sapong.
Burke puts Gabriel Somi in a blender before the ball finds Sapong for a tap in.

It very much should have been a more lopsided score than 2-0. After going down to 10 men the Revs were outclassed. They didn't quit, but that will only take you so far.

Oh, but not to be forgotten, Captain Claude gets two yellows and is sent off, meaning we will miss our two starting center backs next week. Just absurd, you cannot write this stuff.
And thus endeth a painful start to this campaign. Flashes of promise and the goals will surely come, but this was one to forget. A few more observations:

-Gabriel Somi will be an exciting adventure this season. He's very attack-minded and has pace (the combo of him and Penilla on the left will be really cool to watch form a pure speed standpoint), but more than once he was playing aggressive and gave up a ton of space behind him that Philly worked into. Teams like Toronto or Atlanta will exploit the hell out of that. Still, the way Somi bombs forward will create a ton of offense and be fun to watch at least.

-The defense has apparently adapted the patented Foxboro Bend Don't Break defensive philosophy. Philly was getting a lot of deep runs that were snuffed out in and near the 18.

-David Accam is actually good. His holdup play was giving the Revs fits and his combo of speed and skill had Andrew Farrell spinning like a top. He burned him at one point and it wasn't even close.

-CJ Sapong should have had 4 goals, he missed three really, really easy ones.

-At one point Fabinho looks like he took a shot to the dick and Paul Mariner proceeded to laugh and then say, "I shouldn't laugh."

-Diego, Dielna, Zahibo and Juan went with the bleached hair and I am all in on that.

-I thought Brandon Bye was pretty good in his debut. He had one nice play that ended up in him playing Bunbury through, but the vet rolled it wide.

-I thought the pressing and pressure were really good, especially at full strength. Friedel has placed an emphasis on fitness and this seems to be a major part of that. The Revs are gonna press and press and press some more. That being said, they also had a lot of giveaways that needed pressing in order to slow the counter attack.

-Claude Dielna is a bit of a hot head. On a yellow already he continued to attempt risky shoves and holds.
He also started shoving a bit after that when the ref was giving a warning, so he's lucky he didn't get a second yellow for that.

Man of the Match
I thought Matt Turner looked great in his regular season debut. There really wasn't much he could have done on the two goals and made a number of nice saves. He made them look easy as well. If he can emerge as a true potential #1 and we have a sort of 3-way keeper battle I think things will get a lot better. Theres a lot of potential between Turner and Cropper as two young guns with a quick fuse, I was uptight, wanna let loose-sorry about that. And those two pushing each other will make the team better. 

1:30 against Colorado at Fortress Foxboro next week. Let's get on the board fellas. 



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