Revolution v. Colorado Rapids, 5.2.12

It’s a shame there aren’t more midweek MLS games. Watching sports on a weeknight—tapping a box of plonk after a day’s work while the kids go to sleep—is almost always a more enjoyable, less angst-ridden experience than wasting a Saturday afternoon or night in front of the TV. It seems to me that regularly scheduling a few MLS teams to play on a Monday and/or Thursday night in lieu of the weekend, as they do in the NFL, would potentially increase MLS TV ratings. Why, I even have the LA-Seattle match on as I type this. (Incidentally, did the new Seattle announcer Ross Fletcher grow up on the same street as the former Seattle announcer Arlo White? Their accents suggest yes).

My enjoyment of tonight’s New England-Colorado game was no doubt enhanced by the result, a 2-1 New England victory. While it wasn’t a memorable match, Revolution goalkeeper Matt Reis did notch his 100^th victory. Yes, he got caught in no-man’s land on the lone Colorado goal, but Reis made a couple of good saves and definitely earned the win along with his paycheck.

Speaking of earning paychecks, New England forward Saer Sene keeps getting better. He scored on a quality half-volley to bring the Revolution level in the 27^th minute, and then assisted on the second goal shortly before halftime. For a guy that goes 6’3”, 185, Sene has soft feet, and he repeatedly took down long passes with deft touches. In the 45^th minute he settled a long ball on the run and flicked the ball to himself with the side of his heel, blowing by Colorado defender Tyrone Marshall as he did so. (Marshall was forced to bring Sene down with a tactical foul and was given a yellow card.) Sene is sometimes careless with the ball, but in the last couple of games his positive contributions have far outweighed the negative. He seems to be hustling more, too.

To move from a physically large player to a small one, 5’5” Fernando Cardenas started at midfield tonight for the Revolution and had killer game, maybe even better than Sene’s. Cardenas scored that second goal, and while Sene was credited with the assist, Cardenas pretty much created it by himself, receiving Sene’s pass on the right side of the penalty box, cutting the ball back onto his left foot, and sending a perfectly arced left-footed shot over Colorado keeper Matt Pickens. Cardenas punctuated his classy goal with an equally classy celebration, running to the sideline and hugging fellow midfielder Kelyn Rowe, who was benched for this game.

In spite of a few bad stretches that included leaving Jaime Castrillon alone at the near post on Colorado’s only goal (off a corner kick), New England’s back line was again solid. We should remember that during New England’s recent three-game losing streak, Reis and the defense conceded only four goals. And over the course of eight games this year, they’ve conceded only ten. A.J. Soares is clearly the class of the bunch, and he had another good match today. He rarely makes a mistake, is extremely composed on the ball but also plays a physical type of soccer and rarely loses a fifty-fifty ball. Chris Tierney and Stephen McCarthy are liable to get beat occasionally, as they both did tonight (McCarthy badly by substitute Andre Akpan in the 85^th minute—why doesn’t Akpan play more?—and Tierney by Brian Mullan in the 41^st), but that can be said of most defenders, actually all of them. Tierney and McCarthy are both converted midfielders, and I for one hope they stay converted.

Right back Kevin Alston’s night was cut short in the 38^th minute due to reported “sickness,” and unfortunately the cameras caught him at close range getting visibly sick on Foxboro’s synthetic green turf. I feel the same way about the stuff myself, Kevin, and I don’t have to play on it.