FOXBOROUGH -- Sporting Kansas City is up next for the Revolution (Saturday, 7:30 p.m., NBC Sports Boston), but Revs manager Brad Friedel took a few moments after Tuesday’s training to go over a little bit of what happened in the 2-2 draw with Columbus over the week.
“We knew (Saturday) was going to be open at times; we know that most of our games are going to be entertaining with the tempo of soccer that we’re trying to play,” Friedel said. “Some teams, I guess, will come and will try to sit back when they come to our place, but I think most teams try to win on the road, and we’re going to try and win both home and away.
“You try to defend as best as you can, but the object of the game is to score. We tried to do just that.”
Friedel is happy with the balance in his club right now, which sees Diego Fagundez and Teal Bunbury tied with three goals apiece – Bunbury with three goals in the last four matches -- heading into their eighth league match of the season.
“(Goal production has) been scattered around; I’d like to get one or two more on set pieces, if truth be told. But we are a well-balanced team. We can build up and we can cause a lot of problems on the counterattack. We obviously have a lot of work to do, and we’re a still a team in its infancy, but we like a lot of the early signs,” he said.
The Revs coach noted that against Columbus, communication in the back worked “at times.”
“(Gyasi) Zardes scored a goal, and we scored an own goal. Columbus is a really good team, and their movement of all their games this season was probably the best in that game,” he said. “I thought (Pedro) Santos created a lot of problems for us with his movement; they are not an easy team to defend against, but I thought, by and large when I watched it again, we did a decent job.
“Of course, the perfect job is to give the opposition zero chances. That’s a perfect job, but we also want to play a little bit open ourselves and try to score goals. When you do that, you’re going to be susceptible to a counterattack. I was very pleased with how Claude (Dielna) overall and how Jalil (Anibaba) played on the day. Andrew (Farrell) and Gabriel (Somi) had their hands full because they created a lot of overloads, and that’s going to happen against Sporting Kansas City. Hopefully being at home, we can get Andrew and Gabriel a little bit further up the field.”
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- Dielna made the MLS Team of the Week on Monday. So, too, did SKC’s Johnny Russell and Yohan Croziet. Kansas City’s Jimmy Medranda made the bench.
- Revs striker Femi Hollinger-Janzen played a full 90 minutes in a one-match loan appearance for Tulsa Roughnecks FC of the USL last Wednesday. He started on the right and had a pair of shots in a 2-2 draw against Fresno.
- Fellow loanee Mark Segbers, who celebrated his birthday last week, was idle this past weekend. He and his Orange County SC fellows have two matches this week: a midweek trip to Rio Grande Valley FC on Wednesday (8 p.m. ET), and a home match Saturday against the Colorado Springs Switchbacks (10 p.m. ET). Segbers has gotten on the scoresheet in one way or the other (two goals, three assists) the last three matches, so we’ll be eager to see what he does this week.
- Seven days until the early-season transfer window in MLS slams shut. It re-opens on July 10, five days before the World Cup Final.
- SI.com’s Planet Futbol guys, Grant Wahl and Brian Straus, released their annual MLS Ambition Rankings Monday. In ’17, the Revolution pulled up the absolute rear at No. 22. And with a new team in the league this year, and even with a new manager and a few extra signings, it was expected New England would still be at or very near the bottom with the new list. But thanks to the drama playing out with Columbus investor/operator Anthony Precourt, his fan-blaming, and his desire to get the Crew out of Ohio, the Revs held pat at the No. 22 slot, with Columbus dropping to dead last at No. 23.
- Boston City FC (Division 4, NPSL) gets a slightly earlier kickoff to its third season of competition than originally anticipated. The Lions have moved their season opener up to Sunday, April 29 when BCFC welcomes the New York Cosmos B squad to Malden Catholic High School. It’s a 6 p.m. kick. This gives the Cosmos a few extra days to prepare for the U.S. Open Cup play-in round against the Brooklyn Italians on May 6 – the original NPSL start date.Said BCFC managing director Craig Tornburg: “The quest to advance in the U.S. Open Cup is important and while we are not involved in the competition this year, it makes sense for us to help an NPSL club represent the league with the best chance of success. (We) are particularly excited about opening our season a week earlier as they have been looking forward to this match-up.”
- Good on Harry Swartz of Northeastern University men’s soccer to hook up with BV Calvary FC of the PDL this summer. Really interested to see what he does.
- Great to hear the inclusion of Alton, New Hampshire’s Revolution United FC into the United Premier Soccer League, the league in which Boston Siege FC play, for 2019. We hear that Rev U’s youth program is aligned with the Revolution, and we may have to pack up the Honda one weekend next summer and take a ride up 93 to The Lake.
- We can’t wait to hear Boston resident Derek Rae calling World Cup matches for Fox this summer. This will be a treat. When FIFA announced Fox would have the rights to 2018 and 2022, and when Fox rolled Gus Johnson out a few years ago during the FA Cup… I admit it, I cringed. With Rae, a seasoned footballing pro, calling games in Russia, I can now watch without fear.
#NERevs fans and even players are with you. #SaveTheCrew pic.twitter.com/EBCSWAm0Iu
— Monty Rodrigues (@nerevsfan) April 24, 2018