FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – For three straight games now the New England Revolution has made use of an increasingly effective – if unconventional – method of winning.
Just as they did in the first two games of their three-game homestand against Sporting Kansas City and the Chicago Fire, the Revs fell behind in the first half of Saturday night’s meeting with the Montreal Impact only to eventually turn the game on its head, this time en route to a 2-1 victory.
While conceding the first goal isn’t exactly on the Revolution’s to-do list going into games, it’s important at this late stage of the season that the club has found the resolve to overcome adversity.
“First and foremost, we hate giving up that goal. We don’t want to do it,” said head coach Jay Heaps. “It happens, and I think the reactions have been, ‘OK, we know we can come back.’ Before, I think we all thought we could, but we weren’t positive. Now that we’ve done it a few times, there’s that belief.”
There was an element of misfortune in how the Revs fell behind on Saturday night. As right back Andrew Farrell chased a ball over the top, he was clipped by Impact forward Jack McInerney and subsequently eliminated from the play when he fell. From there, it was a simple pass from McInerney to find Calum Mallace for the finish.
But the response from New England was almost immediate. Just 10 minutes after going behind, Kelyn Rowe pulled the Revs level with a long-range rocket which dipped past Impact goalkeeper Troy Perkins. Two minutes after the equalizer, Lee Nguyen finished off a great buildup with his team-leading 13th goal of the season.
“They take that (opening) goal and it almost propels us to be a little bit more confident in our passing,” said Heaps. “They drop off a little bit, so it actually helps us a little bit. They drop in a little bit and we start to open them up. When we’re passing well and a team sits in, we’re hard to defend.”
For all the success the Revs had coming from behind on their homestand – taking nine points from a possible nine – they’ll be looking to carry that belief forward while correcting the mistakes which have seen them consistently fall behind.
The Revs will now return to the road for their next two games, beginning next weekend in Columbus, where they’ll hope to avoid having to make it four straight comebacks against the Crew.
“It takes a lot of heart to come back like that three games in a row,” said Nguyen. “We had a good home spell, but now we’ve got to go to Columbus and get some points there. Hopefully we can get on the front foot there.”
