The Revolution were on a roll until recently, having won five consecutive matches, but after a 2–0 loss to the Montreal Impact May 31 and a 2–0 loss to the Red Bulls yesterday, they seem to be struggling. Eric Alexander and Péguy Luyindula scored for the Red Bulls but the story was the staunch goaltending by Luis Robles, who has looked shaky at times this year but was in excellent form before a crowd of 24,000 at Gillette Stadium.
The Revs had not lost to the Red Bulls at home since 2002 and had not lost at home this season until the shutout loss.
“Today was just one of those games where we kind of made some poor mistakes and we paid for them,” said Revs forward Patrick Mullins. “We didn’t finish our own chances on the other end and luck didn’t bounce our way but sometimes that happens.”
The result is somewhat surprising given the fact that the Red Bulls were short-handed, with Thierry Henry sitting out and Tim Cahill taking a leave of absence to play for Australia in the World Cup. Nonetheless they were able to capitalize on limited chances to snag the win. They only had two shots on target during the match, but both were goals.
Eric Alexander got the scoring started for New York in the 16th minute when he headed in a well-placed free kick from Lloyd Sam. Revs goalie Bobby Shuttleworth was caught out of position and had no chance to attempt a save. Luyindula tacked on another goal in the 76th minute with a beautiful touch off of a teammates’ miss, out of reach of a diving Shuttleworth.
The Revs were not short on chances of their own. Diego Fagundez tee’d up a blistering shot that rang off the post so hard that it rattled the crossbar just before halftime. “I thought it was going to come back and hit the goalie in the head and go in but it didn’t turn out that way,” said Fagundez. “We were unlucky but we have to keep our heads up.”
The real story of the match was the stellar goaltending by the Red Bulls’ Luis Robles. Robles has had a shaky season, with a 1.57 GAA entering Sunday, but he was very strong against the Revs. In the first minute, he made a diving stop on an early chance and he made a spectacular save on a chance by Lee Nguyen in the 22nd minute. Robles remained in the game after a collision with Fagundez in which he seemed to have been hit in the head, remaining motionless on the pitch for well over a minute before slowly getting up and returning to his net. Robles saved all ten of the Revs’ shots on target. Nguyen and Fagundez led the way for New England with two shots on goal each.
“I thought we started the game pretty well,” said Mullins. “We had a couple of chances right off the bat and I think if one of those fell our way it could have been a different game. It didn’t and we should have recovered better and worked harder to make sure we created some more and finished them off.”
The Revolution now stand at 7–5–2 heading into the MLS’s World Cup Break. Their next league match is June 28 against Philadelphia.
Revolution fall to Red Bulls, 2-0
June 9, 2014