New England Revolution Draw With Atlanta United FC After Trailing Against The Number 1 Team In The East
The New England Revolution take on Atlanta United FC in what is a rather odd Wednesday night match at Gillette Stadium. This is just the third match between the two squads with the Revs holding a 0-1-1 record against the expansion team with both of their two matches coming back in September of 2017.
New England will be without Isaac Angking who remains sidelined with an illness and midfielder Zachery Herivaux who is serving international duty at the moment.
Atlanta is going to be a difficult opponent for the Revs despite being at home with United FC coming in as the leader in the Eastern Conference with a 8-3-1 record which is good for 25 points compared to New England’s 5-4-3 record at 18 points. While traditionally in MLS winning at home is expected, for New England coming out with a draw in this match might be considered a win.
But with Atlanta having several players out and banged up it is clear that New England Head Coach Brad Friedel expects his team to come out with a win:”They’re a little bit sparse in the back. We’ll have to see if Escobar is fit, but it doesn’t look likely that McCann is fit. They have Gonzalez Pirez who is out suspended, they have Garza out suspended, so we’ll have to see what sort of players that they put in the back. They have good players all over the field and a very good philosophy of how to play, so I think it’ll be- and I say this most times that we go into a game- I think it’s going to be another entertaining game. You’re going to have two teams that are going to try to score goals and two teams that have good attacks, so we’re going to have to try to be a bit more resolute. We’ve been conceding too many goals as of recent matches, and we’ll try to rectify that situation, but we also want to play our soccer looking forward.”
New England Revolution Lineup:
Matt Turner
Andrew Farrell
Jalil Anibaba
Scott Caldwell
Chris Tierney
Teal Bunbury
Diego Fagundez
Antonio Delamea
Wilfried Zahibo
Luis Caicedo
Cristian Penilla
Atlanta United FC’s Lineup:
Views for the match:
New England is 4-2-1 at home this season, live reactions to the game will be updated below. Watch along with the game being broadcasted on NBCSB and on NBC Sports Live Extra:
1st Half Reactions:
New England for much of the first 20 minutes controlled the possession with the high press keeping the ball deep in Atlanta’s own end. The Revs pressure created a couple of chances but nothing worth noting. Atlanta flipped New England’s pressure pushing quickly up to Matt Turner to score a 23rd minute goal.
The goal was scored by Josef Martinez, MLS’s leading scorer. Martinez was assisted by Julian Gressel and Darlington Nagbe. It was Martinez’s 9th goal of the season.
One of New England’s issues early on in this match was their inability to turn their offensive pushes into actual shots on goal. They certainly had success moving the ball with the high press, but through various miscommunications, offsides, and strong defensive play by Atlanta the Revs couldn’t get a great look on goal.
The Revs had their fair share of chances in the first half but weren’t able to capitalize on the 4 shots they got off in the first half. As a whole it was an evenly played first half with Atlanta getting rather lucky in capitalizing on their opportunity catching Matt Turner by surprise.
Chris Tierney went down with an injury right ahead of half-time with Gabriel Somi replacing Tierney.
Some startling numbers from the Revs was their passing percentages. As a team they had a 72.9% passing completion rate, but Diego Fagundez was at 40% and Cristian Penilla was at 41.6%.
The first half despite giving up the goal was fairly even, the goal was “rather poor” according to Head Coach Brad Friedel with the Revs playing way better than that sequence of play where they appeared to let their guard down.
2nd Half Thoughts:
With New England desperately needing to net the equalizer Friedel subbed in Krisztian Nemeth for Wilfried Zahibo. This allowed the Revs to get more speed onto the field.
The move however pushed the narrative to offense stretching the Revolution backfield which caused Atlanta to get some pretty solid looks at Revolution net-minder Matt Turner. This caused a close call in terms of the potential of seeing an own goal situation.
In the 81st minute to bring in fresh legs Kelyn Rowe was brought in replacing Scott Caldwell. Shortly after the sub Atlanta got a prime look on net with Ezequiel Barco taking a shot which Turner deflected up and hitting the center post before he was able to snag the rebound.
Atlanta in the second half seemed to dominate the possession keeping the ball in New England’s end for extended periods of time with the Revs system unable to function properly in keeping the ball in their opponents end.
New England was able to catch a break with Kevin Kratz conceding a penalty that led to Teal Bunbury drilling home a goal on a free kick to make it a 1-1 match. Things started to unravel very quickly for Atlanta after the save by Turner with momentum suddenly shifting to the Revolution.
As stated earlier in the evening by myself, a draw even at home should be considered a win. Matt Turner was exceptional for New England making a number of saves under immense pressure.
On the night Turner made 6 saves and was clearly the Revolution’s MVP.
What’s Up Next:
New England doesn’t have the luxury to sit around and analyze Wednesday’s game footage at great length with another quick turnaround. The Revs will remain at home with their next opponent, the New York Red Bulls coming to Foxboro for a traditional Saturday night match.
The last time these two teams played was back in the 2017 season when New England lost at home 3-2 on July 6th.
Should be a different type of match though with this being a very different Revolution team under Brad Friedel.
