The New England Revolution began their home campaign against long time rivals DC United. Following their season opener tie last week against Houston, which ended in a wild 3-3 tie, New England were looking to tighten up their defense and get a positive home result.

However they would fail to score any goals despite having more quality attacks and scoring opportunities. What made the 0-0 tie more disappointing was the fact that New England was home, going up against a goalie who was making his MLS debut. It is known that many don’t like to play on turf, and with the amount of offensive minded players on the attack, you feel like you have to score. But unfortunately for New England, they were not able to put Travis Worra under much of a test of his skills, not when 3 out of 18 shots are on target. Two good scoring chances to note was Lee Nguyen hitting the cross bar about 8 yards out early in the 2nd half, and in the last seconds of the match Kelyn Rowe had a shot goes just wide of the post.

“It is very tough to keep New England off the board, we are happy with that, we are happy with Travis’s performance, i’m happy with him“ DC manager Ben Olsen on Travis Worra MLS debut

“They are a good group, they’ve been together for some time now, you see their relationships on the ball are better than ours at this point, and they are at home and they’re used to this turf, this turf isn’t fun.” Ben Olsen post game

The first half was for the most part uneventful. With the half time score tied at 0-0, it was New England who I felt showed more attack in the first half. Despite having no shots on target, New England did get a few shots off but not on target. Lee Nguyen and Diego Fagundez combined on some passing and found Teal inside the DC penalty box, but his shot just wide of the target. Captain Jose Goncalves also got involved offensively as he saw his header from a Tierney corner kick bounce in front of DC’s keeper Worra and over the bar. Despite the positives, there was some bad news for the Revs. Forward Charlie Davies was forced to come out of the game with what looked like a muscular issue in the 35th minute, Juan Agudelo came in in his place.

DC also had some scoring chances, with the best opportunity coming in the 32 minute. Chris Rolfe, deep in the Revs penalty box, attempted a shot attempt but had it blocked when Andrew Farrell was in the right spot at the right time, resulting in a corner kick for DC, but with nothing coming from it.

The 2nd half saw New England get more quality scoring chances than DC, which came in flurries at two different points in the half, early in the 2nd half and late in the half. It was also during the 2nd half when New England managed to get their 3 shots on target. But despite that they failed to score and drew 0-0.

 

“A little disappointed in not getting the win, I thought we went about the game the right way and create as much as we could. Credit the guys, they fought until the last whistles, including getting a chance at the last couple seconds when a team isn’t giving you much.” Revs manager Jay Heaps first thoughts post game

“I don’t think its bad, he came out of the game and I haven’t had a full assessment, but he walked off alright and got treatment, and we are hopeful he will have a good week.” Jay Heaps update on Davies injury

“Dc was smart, compact and didn’t give away a lot. every time we got in the box they had 6, 7, 8 guys behind the ball. You train all week to prepare for this, I thought we were good enough until the final 1/3 or the final ball, but I still thought we created enough, we hit the crossbar, the chance at the end, Juan’s chance. I think we had some things there that if we were a little cleaner we could of scored.” Jay Heaps on DC