Rennicks, Buchanan gave Revolution offense a 'spark' in their MLS debuts

FOXBOROUGH — Brad Friedel wasn’t too pleased with the offensive performance by his Revolution squad during the first half Saturday.

“First half, quite poor, to be honest with you,” Friedel said after the Revs fell, 2-0, to Columbus in the home opener. “There wasn’t a lot of life in the game, from either side. They had one attempt at goal, and we had one attempt at goal. We weren’t aggressive enough defensively and we weren’t moving the ball quick enough.”

There were a couple of things about that first half: the first 10 minutes saw The Boys In Blue have a good chunk of the possession, and kept the ball in the Banner End even without possession. When they lost the ball, they worked to reclaim it. Juan Agudelo’s hold-up play as the No. 9 was good during that spell, but that disappeared. And over on the left flank, Cristian Penilla found himself double-teamed by the combination of Will Trapp and Harrison Afful, and only generated the solo shot on goal during the first 45.

Yet as the halftime strains of Africa faded and gave rise to Joker and the Thief, Friedel sent Diego Fagundez and Justin Rennicks to the touchline. The two Homegrown players -- the first and the latest -- would replace Penilla and Agudelo, respectively, as the Revs headed toward The Fort.

For Fagundez, coming into the game is old hat. He’s done it before.

For Rennicks, it was something new — it was the South Hamilton native’s MLS debut.

“You know, it was kind of surprising: ‘Oh, I’m going in, 45 minutes to play,’” Rennicks said in the locker room. “Coming in at the half, there’s a lot of time left, I've got to do as much as I can to make a difference in the game. It’s just a blessing, getting out there. It’s just amazing.”

“They both did — tried to do — what we’ve been working on in training all week,” Friedel said, “and I thought they were a lot more dynamic in what they tried to do and gave us a big spark in the second half.

“I thought Justin coming on at halftime when he probably didn’t expect to — a lot of players don’t expect to come on at the half — I thought he provided the necessary spark we needed, and he made (Waylon) Francis defend a lot, he made Artur shift over. We started to move him around a bit more. I feel if we started the game in that manner, we would have created more openings.”

Rennicks noted that he adapted to the flow of the game and got right into it, which he did: three minutes into his bow, he came up with a neat backheel to Carles Gil, who had a go but curled it wide.

Three minutes later, with Justin Meram on the counter, Rennicks would track all the way back to dispossess Meram, and got fouled for it.

Yet Rennicks wasn’t the lone Revolution player making his debut: SuperDraft selection and Generation Adidas midfielder Tajon Buchanan came off the bench, the third and final sub of the day in the 81st minute to replace Scott Caldwell.

“I was obviously a little nervous,” Buchanan said, “it was going to be my first game in MLS. I just wanted to come on the field and bring some energy and just get a result and help the team.”

Both players found positive touches, and both tried to get solid shots off in the final embers of the game: after Michael Mancienne had a solid tackle in the box on goal-scorer Gyasi Zardes, Rennicks got on his horse and led the Revs downfield toward The Fort.

Rennicks changed the point of attack and got it to Buchanan, and the Syracuse University product dribbled in… and fired just wide of the far post.

A minute later, Rennicks would get his first off: with his back to goal, he’d spin and rifle a shot into The Fort just as the normal 90 expired.

Both said they didn’t get all of their initial chances.

“I sliced it,” Rennicks said. “If I connected with it, I was aiming for far post.”

“I felt I mis-hit it. I’m always going to take those opportunities when I get them. Unfortunately, I came up a little short on that one,” Buchanan added.

Rennicks noted that the offense had their chances against a rather stubborn defensive unit in Columbus; the Crew stayed rather organized and kept their shape in the 4-4-2.

“It’s that, and we had our chances, and we just couldn’t get the final pass or the final shot off clean, and that’s what it comes down to in a game sometimes,” he said.

“I think we want to be a little more versatile in the attack, no doubt,” Friedel added, “and want to be able to combine and get crosses in the box, and I don’t think we had the telling pass today, but that’s going to be a work in progress as we go through with a lot of new faces.”