When Brad Friedel took the reigns this offseason as the Head Coach of the New England Revolution there was concern whether or not he could get the players to buy in. But any concern has been temporarily alleviated with the team making a rather strong start to their MLS season.

New England has opened their 2018 campaign with a 3-1-1 start with all the players seemingly buying into the system that Friedel has put in place.

Revs forward Diego Fagundez is under the impression that everyone has bought in so far “Yeah, I think everybody [is]. When they want us to pressure, we all pressure as a team, we’re not doing it [individually].”

The notion of being one and having fun as a team has certainly been made clear with the idea of team unity and happiness being made clear so far.” Of course, you notice when someone is scoring, we’re all happy, we’re all celebrating. That’s what we want, we want our team to be together and bonding, and at the end of the day, this coaching staff definitely brought that to us.” Fagundez said after Friday’s win over Montreal.

One of the growing pains so far with Friedel’s system is getting the teams overall fitness level to a point where it can operate the higher pressure system effectively. Every week it seems like the team is getting closer and closer to being ready and according to Fagundez the team is actually rather close and should be there in a few matches.

“I don’t think we’re far at all. We’re almost there, maybe a couple more games. Everybody has
clicked already, but it’s going to show how this team is doing when we’re getting all these hard games
coming up and most important, when we go away and our team is doing well. These couple games
coming up [are] going to be huge. Especially at home, we need to win every game that we can, we need
to keep this vibe going.” -Fagundez on how team is adapting to high-pressure.

Revolution Are Seemingly All In On Brad Friedel’s System

Of course, having a solid start to the season and winning will win over Revs fans and players who might have been skeptics of Friedel and his system, but it does feel like we have a rather good fit in New England with Friedel.

“I think that it’s just a philosophy with all the guys. We all are bought-in to the system. We’re
working hard in training and there’s a lot of competition that’s bringing out the best in everybody. I’m just
trying to continue to stay motivated, play for the glory of god, and make the most of everything.”- Said forward Teal Bunbury who has missed a step under Friedel.

Not every player is likely bought in at this point though with long-time Revolution midfielder Lee Nguyen requesting a trade this past offseason. A request which was not granted by Nguyen has yet to see any action this MLS season with the reason always being him not being physically ready yet for game action. But one can only wonder if there are a few players who aren’t totally sold on Friedel.

It is, of course, important to note that we are only 5 games into the Brad Friedel era but if the current play and feeling is any indicator there is a real chance that the Revolution will return to being one of MLS’s better teams and a team certainly worth watching in Boston.

On Saturday against the Montreal  Impact, the New England Revolution scored 4 goals. Now 4 goals aren’t going to happen every game, but the Revs did it in such a dominating manner.

New England was able to create 25 total shots with 9 of them being on net against Montreal with the team playing up-tempo and dominating the possession game with 61.6% possession and making an insane 586 passes with 83.6% accuracy.

Statistically, they were simply off the charts.

The scary part is that New England could have had at least 6 goals with a few high scoring chances coming up just short including a Diego Fagundez penalty shot that was blocked at point-blank range by Impact goalkeeper Evan Bush.

For the Revs the almost goals didn’t matter too much since they put up 4, but going forward you have to capitalize on every high-quality look since chances are you aren’t going to get to take 25 shots in a match.

“I think it was nice because in the NYCFC game, I think we left some goals out on the
field. I think all the players felt that way. We felt like we could’ve scored more. It’s nice. You’re right, it
doesn’t happen every day. I think we created over twenty some odd chances. The stats were just put in
front of me and that’s really pleasing. If we could score four every game, I think most of the coaches on
the staff would be very happy.”

With the Impact rolling three in the back and two wingbacks the Revs got their outside backs into the attack and it simply made more sense to do so.

Going with this strategy allowed defenseman Andrew Farrell to get into the action and even score his first MLS goal.

“They played with three in the back and then with two wingbacks. So, I think it’s important
to try to get our two fullbacks as high up the field as possible to try to make their wingbacks defend, so
they have five across the back. That should make life a little bit easier for our central midfielders and our
two central defenders. That was part of the plan that we wanted to implement and when you have guys
as fit and as quick as [Andrew] Farrell and Gabriel Somi, then you can do that because they can also get
back if in fact, the other team break on you.”

New England Revolution defenseman Andrew Farrell made 162 career starts for the Revs and couldn’t find the back of the net.

But on his 163rd start, a start in which he tied Taylor Twellman with 7th most games started in franchise history, Farrell found the back of the net.

Farrell has long been considered sort of a goal avoidant type of player with him seemingly never touching the ball in the offensive zone let alone take a one-timer on net. But with a prime scoring chance sitting ahead of him in the 45th minute against the Montreal Impact Farrell decided to let it rip.

What may have been more impressive about Farrell’s performance against the Impact was the other things he was able to do offensively outside of his first MLS goal.

Farrell had two other occasions in the game where he signed on offense including two chances he created that led his teammates to high scoring areas but unfortunately for him did not convert.

Funny enough just prior to the match against the Impact, Farrell and Revolution forward Teal Bunbury actually discussed what he would do if he indeed did score one day. Ironically enough, he ended up scoring just hours later.

“It’s really funny, because sometimes I talk about it before games, that I’m going to score. I talk to
my girlfriend about it and it never happens, and then today we were talking about it with Teal [Bunbury],
and he was like ‘What are you going to do? Are you going to celebrate? How you going to do it?’ and I
was like, ‘I don’t know, I’ll probably explode,’ but it felt really good to get the goal, get on the score sheet.
It’s been a long time coming for me. It feels really good.”

Just in case you don’t believe that Farrell and Bunbury talked pre-game, Bunbury backed up the story when asked about it.

“It’s funny because we were actually talking before the game about what would you do if you
scored today; And he was like, “I don’t even know, I think I’ll just go crazy.” I think he went through about
seven or eight different celebrations. It was a lot of fun. You could see that everybody was very excited
for him. All the hard work he puts in, sometimes we give him a hard time that he still hasn’t scored yet but
we can’t say that anymore. I’m proud of him.”

For Farrell the road to his first goal was a long one, obviously, it took until his 163rd start to nail it, but that was over the course of 5 full MLS seasons and a little part of a 6th. Absolutely incredible stuff that he played 14,000+ minutes and never found the back of the net.

He did have 5 career assists heading into his first goal but couldn’t score on 26 career shot attempts, 7 of which were on goal. But all that changed in an instant and what a goal it was in terms of game momentum. Farrell’s goal came right ahead of halftime putting the Revolution up 2 goals instead of 1 heading into the locker room.

January 15th, 2013 MLS SuperDraft was held at the NSCAA Annual Convention held in Indianapolis, Indiana. Credit: Andy Mead/MLSsoccer.com

A Goal That Took 6 Years Was Simply Worth The Wait

Simply perfect timing for a first goal.

“Definitely worth the wait. It was a great team win, three points, got another shutout. Obviously,
we didn’t expect to be up a man, but I think we did a lot better job managing this game than we did the
last game we were up a man, and so we’ve got to move forward. We’ve got a tough game against Dallas
coming up next week, but I think a lot of guys put in good performances today, and we got to keep
pushing to keep winning.”

As for what happened after the goal, Farrell doesn’t remember.

“I blacked out a little bit. I can’t tell you what happened. I just remember seeing Teal [Bunbury]’s
face when I was running around, but it felt good. I knew I got to take a shot there one time, so this fell to
me, it was a great ball from [Gabriel] Somi—I think Diego [Fagundez] got a little touch, he’s probably
going to try to get an assist for that—but it felt good to help the team on the offensive side of the ball. It’s
something that I’ve tried to work on since I’ve gotten here, and I think it’s getting better and better under
the system, and I’ll keep working to get better at that.”

Just in case you were wondering about Farrell’s beard, it is staying, and as for the ball, it is going home with him.

“I’m keeping it. I’m keeping the beard. With the ball, I don’t know. I’m just going to put it in my
room somewhere. It feels really good to score.”