Matt Turner solid, weathers lapses; Claude Dielna says 'We will work on our mistake'

There has been plenty written in the first month-plus of the 2018 Major League Soccer season by the Revs’ press corps about The Rise of Matt Turner; of how the rookie supplanted not only Brad Knighton, New England’s goalkeeper during the U.S. Open Cup run in ‘16, but also Cody Cropper, the goalkeeper who anchored the ’17 edition of this Original Ten squad; of how he showed extreme amounts of fiery passion after his penalty save against Colorado on March 10; of how he withstood Houston two weekends ago.

The Fairfield University grad and the Park Ridge, New Jersey native added to his collection of solid saves – five of ‘em -- and his press clippings Saturday night, and he also had a good view of the defensive work rate put in by the Revolution despite the 1-nil defeat.

And yes, despite the spoiler in the 77^th minute by Jacori Hayes, the Revs had eyebrow-raising and eye-widening moments behind the ball which even impressed this particular defensive skeptic. Seriously.

“We put our game plan into effect,” Turner said. “I think we got caught short at the back – uneven numbers – but otherwise, I thought it was solid; we were committed. It was unlucky for the goal … those are the kind of goals you try to avoid giving up at home, because sometimes when you’re playing really well, a little cheap goal like that will happen against the run of play, so it’s disappointing.”

Key in front of Turner? The play of left back Gabriel Somi: he had the key tap-away in the opening 30 seconds which slowed Dallas’ first venture into the attacking third following the match’s opening kick, and he had two rather key defensive stands which saw him supplement not only Juan Agudelo in the 69th, but also an important denial of the tourists from the Lone Star State alongside Claude Dielna in the 48th.

Somi parried praise in the locker room.

“It was a tough game; we did some simple mistakes where they countered on us,” he said. “We made a mistake on their goal where we didn’t track (Hayes), and when they’re up 1-0, then it’s hard. We tried, we tried, we pushed ourselves to get the goal to tie, but unfortunately we didn’t get it.”

Luis Caicedo also came up with a critical boot-away in the 66^th, denying Santiago Mosquera of potentially threatening Turner. Andrew Farrell, too, had a key dispossession, a 42^nd-minute pocket-picking of FC Dallas leading scorer Roland Lamah off on the right.

But while there were good moments, there were a few not-so-good ones, as well; particularly two key Scott Caldwell giveaways in the middle. The 16^th-minute giveaway saw a cross from out on the flank go to Lamah, who headed it right at Turner for the stop (and knowing what I wrote about headers in the offensive-minded column, maybe Lamah should have made Turner move, or something).

“That’s not an easy save to make,” Revs bench boss Brad Friedel – someone who knows a little something about difficult saves – said before he exited his presser. “We allowed them in (the box) a couple of times; I don’t think we should have, there’s no doubt. We’ll watch the tape and see what we have to work on, and I think we gave them a few chances on the counterattack that there’s no need to give away. We’ll watch the tape and we’ll get to the bottom of that.”

There was another giveaway by Caldwell 10 minutes later which saw Lamah pass the football to Victor Ulloa, but the midfielder steered it too far off-target.

“We didn’t do as good a job in the first half of keeping the ball and being aware of our communicating the kind of numbers we had at the back so if we had an errant pass or gave the ball away we were short numbers or 2-v-2 and that’s something you want to try to avoid,” Turner said. “We got caught a couple of times, and that’s why I’m there. I’m there; I want my teammates to allow me to make saves and I did that, and I kept us in the game, for the most part. It was disappointing to end up losing.”

And of course, there was the goal.

“(It was) nothing special,” Dielna said. “Nobody talked, so (Hayes) came from behind and no one was with him to keep it. I’m very disappointed for tonight.

“Tonight, we can say, ‘Yeah, we defended well.’ Some things we have to work on. Everything was not perfect tonight, and we go back Monday for training; we’ll work hard and work on our mistake.”