FOXBOROUGH — Midway through the first half Saturday evening, it was rather evident to Brad Friedel and his staff that personnel changes would be needed to take all three points: with Chicago ahead by a goal to nil and purposely pinning itself deep in its defending third — #ParkingTheBus — much in the same way Seattle did back on July 7, and with it being a must-win scenario for The Boys In Blue, something had to be done.
“The first half, Chicago came to kill the clock, to waste time,” Friedel explained after New England’s 2-2 draw with the Fire at Gillette Stadium. “For the most parts of the game, their players were within 35 yards of their own goal. Once we saw that developing in the first half, about halfway through we had already started (talking) about making changes — if we could even wait until halftime to do it.”
The Revs in this first half had owned upward of 73 percent possession, but just had difficulty in making the final touch. In the sequence of heartbeats before Aleksandar Katai took advantage of Brandon Bye’s 19th-minute error, New England had several chances at challenging the Fire back line, but with Chicago’s Bastian Schweinsteiger bullying Teal Bunbury off the ball, they made it problematic for the home side to generate anything. Talisman Diego Fagundez was invisible; it was mainly the defensive players in Luis Caicedo and Andrew Farrell making things happen with insertion passes.
At the interval, Friedel had seen enough. He swapped out Bye and Fagundez in exchange for newcomer Guillermo Hauche, who made his Major League Soccer debut, and longtime servant Juan Agudelo. In the same move, Friedel pushed Kelyn Rowe to the back line in Bye’s place — “He was more of a left winger,” Friedel explained of Rowe's positioning — and switched out of the bread-and-butter 4-2-3-1 formation and into a 4-4-2.
“The changes at the half were putting players on who could unlock a defense,” the gaffer noted. “We felt putting Juan up with Teal alongside (Chicago defender Johan) Kappelhof and Schweinsteiger would cause them problems, and it did.”
Over the next 15 minutes or so, the Revolution offense looked better than it did in the first 45, but that final touch was still missing. Rowe had a drive into the box that Fire keeper Richard Sanchez handled, and Agudelo had a feed from Caicedo where he had to beat away a Chicago defender and shoot, only to do so poorly.
It wasn’t until the 62nd minute that Scott Caldwell scored his second of the year, with Farrell getting the shot off and caroming it off a Fire defender, and Sanchez parried it right into SC6’s path to equalize.
Five minutes later, Chicago went up again on Michael Mancienne’s own goal — something that has been coming, given some of his touches in his first month-worth of matches in a New England shirt — and two minutes after that, Bunbury went into the book.
That set up a free kick near the midway line.
The Fire drove the ball into a two-man wall, with Agudelo claiming it. He drove in with a hard dribble.
Spin move on the counter attack finds the equalizer for #NERevs #NEvCHI https://t.co/TCy5kBRxR8
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) September 23, 2018