Sweeney: The teeter-totter of soccer, and the frustration felt from it

FOXBOROUGH -- At various points during this season, the Revolution have had moments that make fans scratch their heads, yank at their hair — if they have any, of course — and make them question why they support an inept defensive football club.

While Philadelphia’s first goal Saturday night was the result of poor marking, the second was just, in a way, unlucky: the ball caromed off the frame on a shot from distance, bounced off Matt Turner’s hand, and right into the path of Jack Elliot. The ball came from Fafa Picault deep in the channel, so it wasn’t a situation where the Revolution would have a defender on the stick. Just unlucky.

And Greg already went into impeccable detail about Antonio Delamea’s handle Saturday night.

But the one thing that has been a pleasant surprise this year has been the offensive workload. With newbie Cristian Penilla giving a solid attacking option and the goal-scoring work of Teal Bunbury — and with Diego Fagundez in the middle — the Revolution have scored goals. Yes, mainly out of the counterattacking play thanks to the wattage generated by their high press, but the goals have come, sometimes seemingly out of nowhere.

Take, for example, Andrew Farrell’s goal to end the first minute of play in the second half Saturday.

Over the last 15 or so minutes of the first half, the Revs’ passing was anemic. Passes behind an oncoming attacking. Passes just out of reach. And while New England had plenty of the ball in the first quarter-hour Saturday, passes were just offline when they managed to break the Union — with eight men behind the ball and in the box — and get in range.

Simply put, it wasn’t good football. The halftime interval and the t-shirt toss (what is this, a Celtics game?) couldn’t get here fast enough.

In the locker room, the Revolution re-grouped.

“It was an ugly first half, but I think the thing was that we ended the half that way: we didn’t let any additional goals in,” Fagundez said as the locker room cleared Saturday night. “We came in at halftime, and everyone started talking. 2-0 is always a dangerous lead. We knew that as soon as we got one, we could get another one.”

As the Revs kicked off to start the second half, it appeared that New England started to press the Union back, overwhelming them with four attackers: Penilla, Bunbury, Fagundez, and Juan Agudelo. In those first 60 seconds, the Revs pushed and passed, until Farrell, with Penilla seeing him move into space, toe-poked a pass across the top of the box.

Farrell put power and pace behind his shot — who cares if it deflected off a Philly defender? — to get it beyond Andre Blake’s reach, and give the denizens in The Fort something to go crazy for.

In the post-match news conference, Brad Friedel noted the subtle change in tactics.

“All we did in the second half, was ask Cristian Penilla and Juan Agudelo to stay wider and then make harder movements inside and get our fullbacks further forward and release either Cristian Penilla or Juan when pressing, because we had to chase the game a little bit,” he said.

And while the Revs have had difficulty in defending set pieces in recent weeks (Tom mentioned that in his breakdown earlier Monday), New England showed that it, too, can score off free kicks. It did in the home opener, with Chris Tierney’s left foot doing the honors after Wilfried Zahibo went down, back to goal, when a Rapids defender breathed on him.

This time, the free kick came from a deeper distance after Picault had a poor challenge on Luis Caicedo some 27 yards from goal.

Fagundez blasted the free kick, reaching Zahibo’s noggin to dent twine.

“Right before that free kick, I told him ‘penalty stripe’ and he said OK,” DF14 said. “I got the ball there and he got his body there. It was perfect timing. We needed that.

“We went out there and fought, and you could tell the game was coming our way. We knew we were a better team than what we showed in the first half. We just wanted to show the coaching staff that we were good enough to be out there and why we’re playing this sport. We definitely wanted the three points. We got unlucky in the 74^th minute.”

Of course, we know what happened there. A hard-fought point evaporated with an unfortunate touch of the football. It was crushing to the club, crushing to the fans. It represented the latest gaffe in a series of them over the last two-plus months, and pushed the Revs into the non-playoff spots for the first time since early March. The summer swoon, nine years running as we noted two weeks ago, has sunk its talons into the Revs yet again.

Yet it brings us back to our opening paragraph: while we admit fully that Friedel is trying to change the culture and the mentality in the Revolution locker room — which we think is hard to do, given that there isn’t true depth on this roster, as the warm bodies Friedel has available to him doesn’t necessarily mean depth; there weren’t any defensive options on the bench Saturday, and some of the players on this team, as we’ve mentioned, are simply not good enough to play first-division soccer — things haven’t truly changed.

At least not yet. It takes longer than a season of a new staff to weed out the dead wood, to weed out the bad footballing thoughts that have unfortunately seeped into the floorboards of this house.

“It is a mentality. I think one of the things we needed to do as an entire staff, is create a different culture that was at the club, which we’ve been doing from the moment that we’ve come in and we’ve made a lot of strides in doing so,” Friedel said. “And I think people, when they come watch us, they see an exciting team. They see a team on the front foot, a team that can create a lot of chances.

“Do we have to get better at our conceding of goals? Yeah, and at one stage, we were starting to move in the right direction. LA Galaxy game, three really poor goals out of nowhere. But, this group, I think a lot of the guys that have been here have been used to that over the years. Well, that’s not something that we accept. So, you have to stop it. That’s why I was harping that it’s so important never to lose two games in a row. Losing becomes a habit and that’s something that we have to get out of. Not one of – myself or the staff members – have ultimately been in losing teams. And we will find a way to win. There’s no doubt about that, because that’s how we are. And if it means personnel changes, it’s personnel changes. If it means tactical changes, it’ll be tactical changes. But we will find that formula, because we didn’t get to where we are as coaches, either our playing career or coaching career, accepting losing.”

Changes… the fans are waiting for it.

This Sunday at DC United couldn't be soon enough.