FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Consistency is a key concept for the New England Revolution entering the 2015 campaign, as evidenced by the fact that 10 of the 11 players who started last year’s MLS Cup final are on the club’s roster for the upcoming season.
The only exception is center back A.J. Soares, whose contract expired at the end of December. Although he was offered a bona fide deal by New England, he’s currently exploring other options.
That leaves the Revs with a significant hole to fill in the middle of the backline, where Soares – voted the club’s defender of the year in 2011 and 2014 – started 114 games in his four MLS seasons.
As for how the Revs will compensate for Soares’ departure, they believe there are multiple options, both in-house and on the transfer market.
“A.J. Soares is obviously a difficult one to replace,” said Jay Heaps, who admitted that Soares’ departure caught the Revs off guard. “With that said, we feel really strongly with Andrew Farrell as a center back partnered with Jose (Goncalves). We think the two of them could really be a strong partnership.
“At the same time, we’ve also opened up an active search for center backs that can come in and help us.”
Heaps noted that because the Revs weren’t necessarily expecting Soares to leave, their search for center backs is “a little bit delayed.” In the meantime, it’s likely Farrell – primarily a right back through his first two professional seasons – will see plenty of time in central defense throughout preseason.
The position isn’t unfamiliar to Farrell, who spent much of his college career as a center back and made 10 appearances in central defense last season when injuries forced Heaps to shuffle the backline.
Any time Farrell spends at center back in preseason, then, will be more about forming a partnership with Goncalves than learning the position. Farrell was only partnered with Goncalves three times in central defense last season, spending the majority of his time in the middle alongside Soares.
“We’ll see how it goes,” Farrell said on the first day of preseason camp. “We’ve got a lot of good defenders who can slide in the middle, but that’s a position I played a little bit last year and a lot in college, so I feel comfortable.
“I’ve got to get that chemistry down if I am in the middle with Jose. When I played in the middle, I was playing with A.J., because Jose was out with injury. I think I’ll complement him well. A.J. was huge in there for us last year and the past couple years, and it’s going to be a hard role to fill, but I’m up for it.”
