FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – The downside to having a record-breaking, MVP-caliber season – bear with me here – is that the following year, expectations are going to be through the roof.

It was always going to be difficult, bordering on impossible, for Lee Nguyen to replicate his 18-goal, five-assist output from 2014. It was a year in which everything Nguyen touched turn to gold; late in the year, he went through a stretch in which he registered 14 goals and six assists in a 16-game span.

So it really wasn’t entirely surprising when Nguyen got off to a slow start in 2015, notching just one goal and two assists through his first 14 appearances. Some of that may have been due to the weight of expectations, but much of it was a result of the way opponents keyed on the playmaking midfielder.

Nguyen suffered 79 fouls this past year, seventh-most in MLS and only 11 behind Toronto FC’s Sebastian Giovinco, by far the most fouled player in the league. He suffered eight fouls in a single game against the New York Red Bulls on Sept. 16.

The fact that Nguyen was being fouled wasn’t new – he was fouled 77 times in 2014 – but there was something different about the way he was targeted in 2015 as he followed up his breakout season.

“It was definitely more obvious this year than last,” Nguyen said of the persistent fouling. “It’s something I’m going to have to look forward to and prepare for going into next season.”

Frequently fouling an opponent’s key playmaker isn’t a new tactic. It’s designed to not only disrupt the flow of the game when that particular player is on the ball, but to also take that player off his game.

So long as targeted fouling continues to achieve its objectives, teams will continue employing the tactic. The key, then, is to figure out how to work around it.

“I think it has to do with a lot,” Nguyen said. “The guys around you taking pressure off you, it’s having to find different pockets and maybe interchanging with other players, trying to mix and match where they can’t just have one guy follow you around the whole game.”

Eventually, after adjusting through the early part of the campaign, Nguyen did find ways to escape the constant pressure and consistently contribute on the score sheet. He finished the year with seven goals and a career-high 10 assists to factor into 17 goals – not all that far off from the 23 goals he factored into during his 18-goal, five-assist showing in 2014.

But while Nguyen was pleased to see his personal statistics on the rise through the end of the season, it’s not personal objectives that the 29-year-old midfielder has set out to achieve.

“I think numbers-wise, I produced about the same; goals and assists combined were up there,” Nguyen said. “But for me, I would’ve taken all that back to try to get back to MLS Cup. Unfortunately it was a shorter stint than we expected, but we’ll get back to it and prepare again.”