The New England Revolution after a bye-week came back to action against the New York City FC. New England’s gameplan to keep up pressure worked but their lapses proved too much with the Revs ending up with a 2-2 final score.
The Revolution started this match off looking sharp and followed Head Coach Brad Friedel’s gameplan to a tee with early pressure putting NYC FC on their heels right out of the gate.
New England finally capitalized on all of their early opportunities with Diego Fagundez netting his 43rd career goal assisted by Wilfried Zahibo in the 11th minute.
Fagundez was fed the ball right up the middle and was able to find a way to get it by NYC FC netminder Sean Johnson.
With the goal, Fagundez moves into sole possession of 3rd place for the most goals scored in New England Revolution history. Fagundez passes Steve Ralston. Fagundez had himself quite the start of the match and was able to create a multitude of opportunities for himself but was only able to connect on the 11th-minute goal.
The other big influence of pressure in the first half for the Revs was Cristian Penilla who had an abundance of close looks in the first half including a goal post ringer in the 38th minute that can still be heard loudly in Gillette Stadium.
New England’s gameplan of applying pressure worked well in the first half of this match with the Revs creating 10 first-half shots, granted only two of them were on target. But the pressure was what set the table to protect a rookie goalkeeper on the other end of the pitch.
Second Half Struggles With Milestone Hit
The second half of the Revolution gameplan started off much of the same with the gameplan to apply pressure continuing to be effective for Friedel’s team. Unfortunately for the Revs, the NYC FC counter-attack proved to be too much with New York’s Isamael Tajouri scoring a goal to tie the game in the 51st minute.
In an attempt to get things back on track Friedel substituted out Kelyn Rowe and inserted in Juan Agudelo in the 60th minute. It didn’t take long for this move to pay off for Friedel with Agudelo scoring in the 63rd minute off an assist from Cristian Penilla and Wilfried Zahibo.
With the goal, Agudelo becomes the eighth New England Revolution player to reach the 30-goal plateau.
Unfortunately for the Revolution after the Agudelo goal New York picked the pressure back up forcing the game to be played in New England zone. This resulted in New York scoring and tying the game up once again. This time around it was a 75th-minute goal by Tajouri once again, his second of the match.
In response to New York’s second goal of the game Coach, Friedel elected to go with some fresh legs by inserting rookie Brandon Bye and taking Penilla out of the game in the 77th minute.
In the 88th minute, the Revs made a rather surprising move by giving newcomer Luis Caicedo some action with Caicedo making his Revolution and MLS debut. Caicedo was set to be available of the bench but heading in the game it wasn’t expected that he would play but with the game up for grabs is was certainly a risky decision for Friedel.
Goalkeeping Had Its Highs And Lows Which Comes With Having A Young Netminder
Revolution rookie goalkeeper Matt Turner wasn’t tested for much of the first 20 minutes but when NYC FC applied their first pressure of the match in the 18th minute he deflected away a shot by Yangel Herrera with an incredible full-stretch save. The first half wasn’t one of high pressure though for Turner as he only faced 2 shots on goal with NYC FC only managing 3 first-half shots.
For the second half, Turner gave up a goal on the first shot he saw. Can’t fault Turner on the goal with New York applying quick intense pressure and moved the ball around effectively to get the ball past a defenseless Turner. New York’s team-oriented attack was a smart one and proved too much for Turner to turn away. That being said, Turner stopped the following pressures that he faced to try and give his teammates some time to regroup and get back on the offensive.
With New York picking back up the pressure after the Agudelo goal Turner was once again put under fire and gave up another goal to Tajouri.
Turner finished the match with
Penalties Stacking Up
As for the penalties in this one, NYC FC’s Ismael Tajouri was handed a yellow card in the 33rd minute. 10 minutes later New England’s Scott Caldwell received a yellow card for a bad tackle deep in New England’s zone.
In the 70th minute, New England received it’s second yellow card with Claude Dielna receiving this one.
In stoppage time New York’s Saad Abdul-Salaam was handed a yellow for interference with Fagundez.
Next Up
With the draw, the Revs moved to 1-1-1 on the young MLS season.
The New England Revolution will travel to the Houston Dynamo next week with an 8:30 pm start on March 31st.