FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Opponents trying to defend against the New England Revolution this season must feel a bit like they’re playing Whac-A-Mole; as soon as they’ve dealt with one imminent threat, another pops up in a different spot. And then another. And another.
The Revs have featured one of Major League Soccer’s most balanced attacks through the first two months of the season, spreading out their 10 goals through seven different goal scorers. Only one other team – the LA Galaxy – has offered as varied an offensive threat through eight games.
While the Revs don’t have a single player in the top 15 of the league-wide scoring charts – Juan Agudelo, Charlie Davies and Kelyn Rowe lead the team with two goals apiece – the roster has been constructed this way by design.
“We’re just not built for that one goal scorer to score all our goals,” said head coach Jay Heaps. “We have to be balanced. I think dangerous teams are the ones that are most balanced, where a couple guys can beat you at any moment. That’s what we want to be; we want to be really dangerous.”
What makes New England dangerous, somewhat ironically, is the absence of a “primary” threat. There isn’t one pure goal scorer who opponents can form a game plan around stopping; instead, there are five, six or seven players perfectly capable of putting the ball in the back of the net on any given night.
Case in point: in addition to Agudelo, Davies and Rowe, New England has gotten goals from forwards (Teal Bunbury), midfielders (Scott Caldwell and Lee Nguyen) and defenders (Chris Tierney).
“It’s a huge advantage,” said Bunbury. “That means that teams can’t just single out one player and say, ‘this guy is going to produce for them and if we shut him down, then they’re not going to have anything.’
“There are guys that are producing – whether it’s scoring or whether it’s being unbelievable defensively – and it just shows the depth on this team and what we have to offer.”
At no point has the Revolution’s balance been on display more than last weekend, when four different players scored in a 4-0 win over Real Salt Lake. It was the offensive explosion New England had been building toward in recent weeks, and the players can sense that peak form may not be far away.
“It’s a lot of fun. I get a big smile on my face thinking about it,” Bunbury said of the attacking chemistry. “I still feel – and Charlie says it all the time – but there’s still a little bit more that we can give.
“We had another three opportunities to score (against RSL) and I feel like it’s really coming along. We still have a long season to go, but there’s a lot of good things that are happening.”
