FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – It’s safe to say those early-season scoring woes are well behind the Revolution.
Diego Fagundez notched his first two goals of 2014 on Sunday night to lead a rampant Revs attack which scored four times in the first half en route to an emphatic 5-0 win over league-leading Seattle Sounders FC. The Revs have now scored 12 goals in their last five games after scoring just twice through their first five contests.
“We knew what we had to do on the field, and then it was just commitment to the play,” said Fagundez, who led the Revolution with 13 goals last season. “We fought, we did everything we could and we finished every chance we had.”
Fagundez’s impressive double was supplemented by first-half strikes from Patrick Mullins and Teal Bunbury, while Sounders center back Chad Marshall turned Bunbury’s right-wing cross into his own net to round out the scoring just moments into the second half.
In truth the match hinged on Mullins’ opener in the 14th minute, when the rookie forward pounced on a rebound and finished from close range. In the early stages it was Seattle on top, forcing Revolution goalkeeper Bobby Shuttleworth into a pair of big saves inside five minutes.
But Mullins’ goal allowed the Revs to gain a foothold in the game, and from there the floodgates opened.
“Fortunately it was a goal that got us out of the funk a little bit,” said head coach Jay Heaps. “Early on we were playing in our own half and we felt like we were giving the ball back to them, so our break had to start working. When it did, it opened everything else up.”
Another clean sheet – the Revolution’s fourth in four home games this season – was the cherry on top of a scintillating victory, which extended New England’s unbeaten run to five games (4-0-1) and lifted the club back into a tie for first place in the Eastern Conference.
The Revs have won three straight as part of that run, besting defending MLS Cup champion Sporting KC, star-studded Toronto FC and league-leading Seattle Sounders FC in a two-week span. So does that send a message to the rest of MLS?
Not as far as Heaps is concerned.
“We don’t send messages,” he said. “We just play hard.”
