FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – With the New England Revolution left searching for positives following Sunday’s frustrating loss to New York City FC, Lee Nguyen’s return likely tops the list.
Nguyen, a league MVP finalist last season after registering 18 goals and five assists, made his 2015 debut by starting and playing 71 minutes at Yankee Stadium. He’d been limited through the end of preseason and missed the opener in Seattle while recovering from a groin injury.
“It felt great,” Nguyen said. “Jay (Heaps) was trying to watch my minutes in the first game back, so I think the most important thing was getting out on the pitch and trying to get the form back.”
Heaps had always planned for Nguyen to play about 65-70 minutes upon his return, and the 66th-minute red card to Revolution captain Jose Goncalves only reinforced that decision. With the Revs down a man and chasing the game, Nguyen would’ve been forced to cover more ground and push his fitness beyond where Heaps felt comfortable, so Scott Caldwell came on for the final 20 minutes.
“It’s not wanting him to overdo it,” Heaps said. “Especially going down a man, his amount of running would’ve really been impacted.”
Still, Heaps was happy with what he saw from Nguyen, particularly through the latter stages of the first half when the Revs had a firm grip on the proceedings and generated a series of clear-cut chances.
“I thought his sharpness was there,” Heaps said. “I thought he looked pretty good.”
Nguyen missed the bulk of preseason with the Revolution, but through the first few weeks that’s because he was in camp with the U.S. National Team. He regained his sharpness and built a fitness base during that camp, so when he was forced to rest his groin, it didn’t put him too far behind.
“Had I not been doing anything, it would’ve been a longer recovery,” Nguyen said. “Being with the national team and building that base, then taking two weeks off to recover and then build again, that was better for me to get that rest after camp.
“At the same time, I didn’t lose too much since I was already with the national team, so that was good.”
Although Nguyen’s return couldn’t spark the Revs to their first victory (or goal) of the season, there was promise as Juan Agudelo, Diego Fagundez, Kelyn Rowe and Chris Tierney all went tantalizingly close.
The next step, of course, will be turning chances into goals on Saturday afternoon, when the Revs welcome the Montreal Impact for the home opener at Gillette Stadium (CSNNE, 3 p.m. ET).
“We created a lot of chances early on and had one gone in, it probably would’ve been a different game,” said Nguyen. “But that’s how the game goes. Now we’ve got to look forward to Montreal this weekend.”
