Revolution at Montreal Impact, 7.18.12

A week and a half ago the Revolution beat the New York Red Bulls at Gillette. After that win, New England hadn’t lost a game since late May. However, their five-game unbeaten streak included only two wins to go along with three ties, hardly a dominant stretch. And Jay Heaps surely wanted to come away with at least four points in his team’s next two matches, one against last-place Toronto and one against the expansion Montreal Impact.

Instead, New England has done damage to their playoff chances, losing to Toronto at home last week and to the Impact last night. It was the Revolution’s first-ever game in the newly expanded Saputo Stadium, a forgettable 2-1 loss.

For anyone just waking up from a coma, the Revolution are a dim shadow of the team that once included players like Clint Dempsey, Taylor Twellman, and Steve Ralston. The Revs do have a couple of holdovers from that era in Matt Reis and Shalrie Joseph, but they are of course older now. The latter didn’t play last night due to nagging injuries, and Reis made his first start in three games against the Impact. In short, the current Revolution—while they do have a roster with some promising new, young players like Saer Sene and Lee Nguyen—are looking for an identity. That’s not surprising given all the recent roster changes and head-coaching change. But the fact remains that they just lost to a team that wasn’t even in MLS last year. I would’ve liked to have seen a far more aggressive effort from New England last night. (I should add that Nguyen had his third straight impressive match for New England. It wouldn’t surprise me if Heaps tries to run more and more of the offense through him.)

The standout play of this game involved a goal by Montreal’s Sanna Nyassi, brother of the Revolution’s Sainey. (Sainey came on in the 79^th minute to play his first eleven minutes of the season for the Revs, by the way.) The goal unfortunately said as much about the Revolution as it did about the Impact. It occurred in the 67^th minute, with the game tied 1-1. New England defender Kevin Alston had a chance to clear a ball in his own third, but he headed it down in an attempt to gain control and make a run up the right sideline. His ball was intercepted by, I think, Montreal’s left back, who had pressed forward for a Montreal free kick. He played the ball into the corner for Justin Mapp, who sent a cross to the back post that found Nyassi. Nyassi’s one-time volley was excellent, a crisp seeing-eye strike that slipped between Reis and the near post.

But while Nyassi’s strike was good one, he was unaccountably wide-open when he made it. New England left back Chris Tierney will probably be blamed for the goal, but to me it looked like a miscommunication between him and midfielder Kelyn Rowe. Nyassi originally appeared to be Rowe’s mark, but Rowe drifted off him while Tierney was edging towards goal. Whoever had ultimate responsibility, the Revolution defense looked far too soft on the play; the lot of them got caught ball watching, which is inexcusable, especially given the time, score, and situation. It was exactly the kind of confused-looking sequence you’d expect from a first-year expansion team, and the Revolution proved last night that they are no better—in fact looked just a little bit worse—than that.

Here are the full match highlights. Go to the 6:50 mark to see the Nyassi goal.