CHESTER, Pa. – Brad Friedel recently expressed frustration that his New England Revolution side has continued to find ways to concede goals despite largely positive performances.
There’s no question New England found a new way to concede a goal on Saturday night at Talen Energy Stadium, where a bizarre sequence early in the second half led to the game’s only goal in the Philadelphia Union’s 1-0 victory.
Union forward Cory Burke was played through on goal in the 53rd minute only for the linesman’s flag to go up for offside. Referee Drew Fischer, however, allowed play to continue for a full 10 seconds as Burke rounded Revolution goalkeeper Matt Turner and put the ball in the back of the net. Fischer then whistled for offside before consulting video review and allowing the goal to stand.
“Following the video review protocol, the play was allowed to continue until the goal was scored,” Fischer told the pool reporter after the match. “At this point the decision on the field was offside. The VAR recommended a review for a goal, and following the review, a goal was awarded.
“It was my discretion. The protocol suggests that we allow play to continue until a play is resolved, in this case in a goal.”
Replays seemed to indicate that Burke was, in fact, onside when the ball was played, but the length of time between the flag going up and the goal being scored, and the fact that virtually every player on the field apart from Burke and Turner stopped playing, left the Revs feeling a bit frustrated.
Still, frustrating as it may have been, Friedel praised the call as the correct one.
“The referee, on that occasion, got the play absolutely correct,” said Friedel. “But it’s a difficult one because as the player hits it, the linesman puts his flag up. When he puts his flag up, all the players stop, including all their players, except for Burke.
“To the letter of the law, it’s a goal, but it’s a hard one to take. You clearly hear the whistle after the ball has already hit the back of the net. And he was onside. He was onside. They were level. I guess letter of the law you can’t complain, but it’s so hard when you’re a player and you see the flag go up and everybody on both teams stops except one player.”
It only compounded the Revolution’s frustration that the sequence decided a match in which they felt they’d played well. New England’s midfield trio of Luis Caicedo, Cristhian Machado and Wilfried Zahibo largely limited Philly’s Alejandro Bedoya, Borek Dockal and Haris Medunjanin, while Union goalkeeper Andre Blake needed to make a trio of stellar stops in the second half to keep the hosts in front.
“Credit to Andre Blake – he out-goalkeeped me tonight,” said Turner. “He did really well. He made a couple great saves that kept the Union in the game. We’re frustrated not to get anything out of it, but we’ve been saying that a lot this year.”
The loss stretched the Revolution’s winless run to eight games (0-6-2) as they’ll head into September four points below the playoff line in the Eastern Conference, and although they’ve endured a wretched run of results, they remain confident that they have the pieces to put together a late-season run.
“We’re worried that we haven’t won a game in a long time, but we know the quality we have here on our team,” said Andrew Farrell. “We’ve got nine games now. We have to win every single game and get results every single game.
“It’s not over. It’s not mathematically over, so we’re not going to stop fighting until it is.”
