FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – The New England Revolution’s last meeting against the New York Red Bulls may have marked the lowest point of their season.
Just 12 minutes into their July 11 match at New York, the Revs looked up at the scoreboard and found themselves trailing 3-0. They’d go on to lose the match 4-1 to extend their season-long losing streak to five games before snapping it the following weekend.
Though the Revs tend not to dwell on the past, the July 11 match seems to have stuck in their craw a little bit more than others. New England will look to exact a measure of revenge against the Red Bulls on Wednesday (7:30 pm ET; MLS LIVE), when they’ll attempt to extend another season-long streak – the Revs enter the midweek contest having won their last five and gone unbeaten in their last seven – at Gillette Stadium.
“That was a real tough challenge last time we played them,” said Revs head coach Jay Heaps. “We weren’t at our best and we were a little bit, and we’ve talked about it, our shape was definitely not good enough and we hit a wall there.”
The match isn’t just the rubber meeting between two rivals, however – New England and the Red Bulls split their first two games of the year, with the Revs winning 2-1 at Gillette on May 2 before New York’s July 11 victory – it also holds significant weight in the MLS standings. Fourth-place New England (12-9-7, 43 points) could jump the Red Bulls (13-7-6, 45 points) for the top spot in the Eastern Conference with a win.
“It’s a huge game,” said forward Charlie Davies. “It kind of catapults us to the top of the table, and it’s a game that we’re looking forward to. They’re a huge rival for us, and we don’t like the taste they left in our mouth after our last match versus them.
“We want to come out and establish our style of play from the get-go,” Davies coninued. “We’re all looking forward to this match.”
This will be the second match of New England’s three-game week, and after taking max points in Toronto on Sunday, doing so again midweek would be a massive push for their chances at a top-two seed in the playoffs – and the first-round bye that comes with it.
The Red Bulls enter on a similar hot streak, having won seven of their last nine, so the Revs will have little margin for error if they want to fully bury the demons from that July 11 drubbing.
“We’ve managed to tighten up our shape, we’ve managed to increase our pressure and we’ve managed to put teams on the back heel a little bit,” said Heaps. “New York does the same thing. We’re very similar in our approaches, and sometimes those things kind of come together. There’s going to have to be moments in the game where one team takes advantage of an area on the field.”
