The New England Revolution took on the Columbus Crew in their 2nd leg of their playoff series. The Revolution won the first leg in Columbus 4-2 and put themselves in the drivers seat to move on. Despite their win, the first game was a very chippy game, mostly from the Crew, who did commit the most fouls. A big concern of mine for the 2nd game will be the amount of fouls, Revs players picking up unnecessary yellow cards or worse red cards, and getting suspended for the first game in the conference finals. Despite their big lead, manager Jay Heaps did start 10 of his regular starters, with right back Andrew Farrell not in todays game, or on the bench. He missed todays game due to a right leg injury. The Columbus Crew did leave 3 of the regular starters at home, Higuain, Anor, and Schoenfeld. Higuain is the teams leading scorer, so this was a surprise. At this point I don’t know if there are injuries, or just a coach’s decision.
First 30 minutes didn’t see much happening in the game. Both sides had chances, shots. Crew had more possession but didn’t do much with it. In the 33rd minute first real chance in the game, Revs AJ misjudged a cross is, and the Crew’s Jairo Arrieta had a quality shot on target, but Revs keeper Bobby Shuttleworth was equal the task, making a diving save to his left. The Crew continued a little bit with the aggressive play, mostly due to frustration. The Revs were able at times in their attacking end, in the corners pass the ball around, choosing to maintain possession instead of getting crosses into the penalty area. With a 2 goal lead and no need of scoring a goal, why give up possession? And a few times the Revs were able to bleed precious seconds from the clock by knocking the ball around, frustrating the Crew players. Again frustrating to see the ref not call the fouls, but it was obvious he was going to let them play.
In the 43rd minute the Revs were able to break the deadlock, in a sequence of plays, Teal Bundbury showed great patience in holding onto the ball near the Crew net, and with 6 Crew players all ball watching, Lee Nguyen made a run into the middle of the penalty area, unchallenged, found Teal’s cross and buried it into the back of the net. This goal was Lee’s 2nd goal this playoffs in two games, 20 including the 18 during the regular season. Yet another reason why he should be this years league MVP.
The 2nd half started with a flurry of shots by the Revs but were unable to find the back of the net. In the 55th minutes, on a counter attack, the Revs were able to add a 2nd goal. Charlie Davies and defender Jose Goncalves on a 2 v 1, Charlie squares the ball to Jose, but not getting a clean shot off, Crew keeper made the initial stop but because he was diving to his right momentum took him in the net and made it 2-0. “I think we were very well prepared, everyone knew what to expect when we went to Columbus, and everyone knew the situation today.” Jose Goncalves said after the game. “Season is very long. If you lose one time you can win the next win.” “I think we work very well during the week, that is why the mentality is there, the hunger is there, and tonight we showed again we are a very good team, we have great spirit.” As for the his goal he scored today? “I had the touch on the ball, and after I saw we could make a counter attack, I made the run, so Lee passed to Charlie, I was expecting to Charlie to shoot, but he played a good ball, and I finished. I was a little bit lucky at the end.”
A moment of concern in the 60th minute as Crew’s Finlay made contact with Revs keeper Bobby Shuttleworth’s head with his shin. A pass was played in to the penalty area for Finaly but was too far ahead of him. With Bobby sliding, Finlay was unable to get out of the way. The result was a red card for Finlay, reducing his team to 10 players. Bobby would continue and finish the game. In the 68th minute the Crew scored on a free kick. Justin Meram crossed the ball into the penalty area where Tony Tchani headed the ball over Bobby into the top left corner of the net making it 2-1. 9 minutes later Teal scored the 3rd goal of the game for the Revolution, with Daigo providing the assist. After a 2nd red card was issued to Columbus’s Justin Meram, when he stepped on Kevin Alston’s ankle. The final score was 3-1 New England (7-3 aggregate score).
Some people might be surprised that the Revs would press hard for more goals in this game, since they were already up 4-2 on aggregate. “Look we just want to win home.” said manager Jay Heaps. “We want to make sure this is a place that we can come out and play. We really wanted the zero, yea, but at the same time we think that a good defense is a good offense. We want to keep teams off footed. We are who we are, sometimes I think we have to embrace what team we are.” With only 3 ties all season, Heaps has said it before that he always tries to play for the win. With a team playoff attendance record set tonight with 20,184, you definitely need to go for the win, and tonight they delivered. In two weeks MLS playoff action resumes, and the Revs will face off against the New York RedBulls for the chance to go to the MLS finals. This will also be a two legged aggregate series. Since New England is the higher seed, the first game will be played in NY, with the return leg in New England.
