New England Revolution and the Columbus Crew met in the Revs last home game of what has been a miserable season. New England comes into this match with a record of 5-15-12 while Columbus is 12-12-8.
While the Revs are playing for pride, a win for Columbus puts them in the playoffs. The field has NFL lines on them for the Patriots game tomorrow. Just hate how that looks.
Before the game att Reis was named 2011 New England Revolution Team MVP. Rookie A.J. Soares was also honored with the Best Defender award, while Reis and Zak Boggs shared Humanitarian of the Year honors. The MVP award was determined by a fan vote, while the defensive award was voted on by the team’s beat media.
Revolution-Columbus Crew starting lineups:
REVOLUTION: Shuttleworth; Alston, Barnes, Coria, Tierney; Guy, Joseph, Feilhaber, Zerka; Fagundez, Caraglio.
COLUMBUS: Hesmer; Gardner, Marshall, James, Miranda; Ekpo, O’Rourke, Gaven; Mendoza, Renteria, Duka.
Referee: Mark Geiger.
First Half Highlights
Crowd still filing into Gillette, but looks like the Revs might get over 10,000 tonight.
5′: First chance of the game for Columbus but James called for the foul off the corner kick for climbing the defender
24′ Renteria with a nice cross just in front of the #revs goal and Shuttlesworth knocks it clear.
Pretty quiet opening 25 minutes. Revs pressing the game, and Columbus happy to counter-attack where they do look dangerous.
31′ Goal Columbus. Horrendous defending by Barnes who let a long ball bounce over his head and Mendoza who makes no mistake. 1-0 Columbus. Schoolyard defending by New England.
38′ Crew starting to create chances against a porus New England defense. Will be very surprised if they don’t score more goals here tonight.
41′ Mendoza giving a yellow card for disent.
So 1-0 Columbus at half-time. Revs huffed and puffed without creating a lot. Crew look dangerous on the break as New England are playing a risky offside game.
Second Half Highlights
53′ New England’s Shalrie Joseph with a rocket just outside the box. But it was always rising and goes over the bar.
58′ Goal Columbus. Dilly Duka picked up a poor Revs clearance, skinned Alston before finishing wiht a nice low shot past Shuttleworth. Nice finish, but once again poor NE defending.
63′ Goal Columbus as Mendoza thumps it home from a Renteria cross. New England back four all at sea as they failed to handle the initial pass which was a long ball out of the Columbus defense.
68′ New England subs. Zerka off and Schilawski on and Lekic replaces Caraglio
Announced crowd of 16,285 tonight. Good crowd by NE standards. Pity they saw such a poor Ne England performance.
Lot of work for the Revolution in the offseason. They have some parts in Reiss, Soares, Joseph, Benny and Diego to build around. But they need a goal scorer and another strong center-half.
Final score then 3-0 Columbus. New England we shockingly bad even for them. Crew will cause teams problems in the playoffs with Mendoza and Renteria up front.
