FOXBOROUGH — There have been several occasions during this 2019 season where the comments on Twitter and Facebook have come with derision on the topic of one Diego Fagundez. It’s time to move on, they’ve said. Trade him and get some defensive help, they’ve said.
Of course, a good portion of the commentary has been fair: the former Leominster Blue Devil and the Revolution’s first Homegrown player waaaaay back in 2011 has been in a sort of limbo over the last month and a half. Entering Wednesday night’s 4-0 win over Vancouver, Fagundez has been used sparingly by Bruce Arena: he only played a handful of minutes last Friday, and wasn’t used at all in the trip to Colorado back on July 4.
He went nearly an hour against Houston on June 29 after seeing out the last three-plus minutes against Philadelphia three days earlier.
There’s another reason for Fagundez’s problems: he hadn’t been necessarily shooting well. For a good portion of 2019, DF14’s shoots have been rather errant, finding The Fort or the Lighthouse Tunnel. He hadn’t even struck the woodwork. It was almost like the goal and Fagundez's shots were the reversed polarity of a magnet.
That is until June 2, when Fagundez hit the crossbar against Los Angeles Galaxy in Carson. That night, Fagundez went 83 minutes, one week after not being in the squad against DC United.
The next morning, I had written that games like the 2-1 win over the Galaxy are ones that can build confidence. We had already seen what scoring did for Juan Agudelo. Same with Teal Bunbury: TB10 opens his 2019 account that night, and he’s been in his 2018 Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop form ever since, with seven goals in eight games in both competitions.
I had also written that Fagundez hitting the crossbar can be considered a boost in confidence, seeing as he looked mired in goal-scoring purgatory. After all, he hadn’t scored since the season finale last year, the lone goal in a 1-0 win over Montreal — and his 50th career goal in the league. But like the veteran he is, he kept working. If he had to sit on the bench, he did so. If he started, wonderful.
On Wednesday, Fagundez finally broke his goose egg on the season: after replacing newcomer Gustavo Bou in the 78th minute and with the Revs lead, 1-0, he got on the other end of a Cristian Penilla volley, heading it beyond Maxime Crepeau to double the Revs’ advantage in the 82nd minute.
Fagundez makes it two for #NERevs! #NEvVAN pic.twitter.com/M0l0StckDK
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) July 18, 2019