TUCSON, Ariz. – Diego Fagundez hasn’t spent much time in New England Revolution camp this preseason, which explains why he was still a little shaky on some of his newer teammates’ names during Wednesday night’s loss to Real Salt Lake in the opener of the Desert Diamond Cup.
The 20-year-old midfielder, who spent the latter part of January and the first week of February helping Uruguay qualify for the Under-20 World Cup, went through his first Revs training session of 2015 on Tuesday morning, a light workout after a long travel day on Monday.
And then it was straight into the starting lineup against RSL.
“It was hard, but I definitely adapted quickly with the players,” said Fagundez, who started alongside six players who are either new to the Revs or on trial. “I didn’t know a lot of the names, which was hard for a little bit, but after five or six minutes I could communicate with everyone, which definitely helped a lot.”
Fagundez played 45 minutes in a central attacking midfield role, tucked behind target forward Juan Agudelo and flanked by Sean Okoli and Timi Mulgrew. It was a slight departure from previous years in which Fagundez has typically operated as a winger.
While Fagundez admits that there’s a learning curve with the new position, it’s an education which began with the Uruguay Under-20 side, which uses the creative attacker in a similar role.
“While I was down there with Uruguay, that’s the position I was playing, so it helped me,” Fagundez said. “It’s the position I like to play and I feel more comfortable in. I just have to learn a couple more things because it’s going to be a new position if it keeps going longer in the season.”
The underneath role allowed for plenty of linkup play with Agudelo, whom Fagundez formed a strong partnership with during Agudelo’s first stint with the Revolution back in 2013.
There were glimpses of that chemistry on Wednesday night at Kino Sports Complex.
“I thought Diego was excellent tonight,” said Jay Heaps, noting that Fagundez is in peak physical condition following Uruguay camp. “He and Juan connected a few times and we’re excited about that, because that’s a good connection that we’ve seen in the past. We want to get it working again.”
“We didn’t lose that chemistry where we know how to play with each other, which is really good for us,” said Fagundez. “Today it showed a little bit where we were trying to combine with each other and look at each other and know what we’re going to do. We were unlucky that we couldn’t get a goal.”
Fagundez will now have the chance to go through two more training sessions before the Revs return to action on Saturday night, when they’ll continue Desert Diamond Cup play against the Colorado Rapids. That may not seem like much, but for a player who’s only just joined camp, every session is crucial.
“I think every training session that we get together, it’s going to be better and better,” Fagundez said. “We just have to keep moving forward and keep looking for the next game now.”
