FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – There have not been an abundance of bright spots during the New England Revolution’s current three-game losing streak, but the resurgence of Lee Nguyen – so critical to the club’s MLS Cup run last year – offers hope that another late-season surge may be on the cards.
Nguyen put forth perhaps his two best performances this season on the road trip through D.C. and Columbus, assisting on Charlie Davies’ opener at RFK Stadium before registering his first goal from the run of play in 2015 in the opening minute at MAPFRE Stadium.
Although the Revs ultimately lost both of those matches, Nguyen looked much like the player who was a finalist for league MVP last season, and Jay Heaps says it all starts on the defensive side of the ball.
“Defensively, he definitely helps lead where we are in our shape and where we’re putting the pressure on,” Heaps said of the attacking midfielder. “I think it was a perfect example [against Columbus] of where we were in a good shape defensively, created a chance and he finished it off.
“I think as we get further into the season, we’re going to need more of those types of situations, where our defense leads to offense.”
A little more than halfway through the 2015 campaign Nguyen’s numbers stand at two goals and three assists, well off the pace of the 18-goal, five-assist showing which turned heads last year. But that’s not entirely surprising, and there are many reasons Nguyen’s statistics are lagging compared to 2014.
While Nguyen has appeared in 17 of the Revolution’s 19 games this season, he was far from 100 percent through the early part of the schedule. A groin injury kept him out of the season opener in Seattle, and it took an extended run back with the team for Nguyen to fully regain his fitness and form.
“Any time you’re out, you need a couple games to get your feet back and get that form back,” Nguyen said. “It’s not going to happen overnight. But it’s a long season.”
But as Nguyen regained his form, he found that teams were targeting him – devising specific game plans to prevent him from doing any damage. It’s hard to score 18 goals when every team you face has made it their primary objective to keep you off the score sheet.
The coaching staff has worked to mitigate that by putting Nguyen in advantageous positions, but Heaps said it also falls on Nguyen’s teammates to pick up the slack when he’s garnering extra attention.
“It’s not so much what to do when Lee’s getting marked,” Heaps said. “Obviously we can pull him around and we have; we’ve put him in different spots on the field and started him in different positions when we have the ball.
“But for me, it’s the guys around him have to also lift up their game. They’re going to have more space and time because Lee is occupying one-and-a-half to two players.”
One player who’s made the most of that extra space is Davies, tied for sixth in the league with seven goals, all scored in the last 13 games. And as Davies has required more attention from opponents, Nguyen has found a bit more of the freedom which makes him so dangerous in the attacking third.
With Nguyen kicking into high gear – punctuated by a place on the 35-man provisional U.S. National Team roster for the CONCACAF Gold Cup and an ESPY nomination for Best MLS Player – the Revs once again boast one of the key figures from last year’s memorable late-season run.
Now it’s a matter of turning those quality individual performances into quality results.
“I feel great,” Nguyen said of his recent form. “The main thing is, we want to win. Guys go out there, we play hard for 90 minutes and we want to get a result.”
