FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – If any team can empathize with the Colorado Rapids’ early-season scoring woes, it’s their upcoming opponent, the New England Revolution.
Just like the Rapids' current state, the Revs battled through their first three games without finding the back of the net.
And with the Revs set to take on Colorado at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park on Saturday (7 pm ET, MLS LIVE), New England – who scored their first two goals of the year in last weekend’s 2-1 home win over San Jose – know all too well the air of desperation the scoreless Rapids must be feeling.
“It gets frustrating when you’re not scoring goals,” Revs defender Chris Tierney told MLSsoccer.com. “You tend to throw numbers forward and really try to put teams under pressure. That’s exactly what we’re expecting out of them. Pressure will be on them to score their first goal of the season at home, and the pressure will be on us to defend it well and take the chances that we create.”
One of the big issues that New England must contend with is the different looks used by the Rapids, who also haven’t conceded a goal this year, with all three of their games ending in scoreless draws. Despite the familiarity between the coaches, who played together with the Miami Fusion (1999-2001), New England coach Jay Heaps knows that Colorado boss Pablo Mastroeni is prone to being unpredictable with his lineups and personnel.
“I think their lineups have been very different, so they’re a difficult team to really pin down exactly how they’re going to try and break you down,” said Heaps. “That was the difference with San Jose, we were able to look at their consistent lineup and predict a little bit what it was going to look like. With Colorado, there’s a different task at hand. There’s different players. There’s different groupings that Pablo Mastroeni likes to use. It’s a tough team to prepare for.”
Although the Rapids offense hasn’t gotten off the mark yet, their defense has performed well, recording three straight clean sheets to start the season. The Revs are hoping they can counter if the Rapids push numbers into the attack, but they know Colorado won’t be easy to break down.
“They’re good defensively,” said midfielder Kelyn Rowe. “They obviously don’t want to give any up and push too many numbers forward, but they’re at home, they want to score some goals. They’re a dangerous team, they’re a very good team.”
New England know it won’t be easy to build on last week’s’ momentum against one of the league’s stingiest teams, especially one as starved for a goal and a win as they themselves had been just a week ago.
“We’ve got to be mindful of what they’re doing,” said Heaps. “They got excellent defense, obviously, in giving up zero goals in three games.”
