FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – There have been a few minor bumps in the road as Juan Fernando Caicedo has made his transition to life in MLS, but there’s hope that the Colombian forward’s first two goals with the New England Revolution – scored in last weekend’s 4-4 draw with Sporting Kansas City – will be a harbinger of things to come.
Caicedo, acquired on loan from Independiente Medellin in December, was limited to just 220 minutes of preseason action as he dealt with a muscle injury. That same injury hindered his fitness and delayed his MLS debut until mid-March, when he played six minutes off the bench in Toronto.
Caicedo’s first start didn’t arrive until early April, and he’s bounced in and out of the starting lineup throughout the past month as head coach Brad Friedel has mixed-and-matched personnel to try to find an attacking group that clicks.
Friedel may have done so last weekend with a heavy contribution from Caicedo, who scored New England’s first two goals as the Revolution put together their best attacking display of the season.
“It was a shame Juan Fernando in preseason was injured. He’s had sort of a stop-start beginning of the season,” said Friedel. “I thought [in Kansas City] you started to see the reason that we signed him in the first place. He made a lot of forward runs. He holds the ball. He’s strong.
“I’m sure it will do his confidence a world of good to score those goals.”
The Revs have deployed several different formations and personnel groupings throughout the season’s first two months, and at Children’s Mercy Park it was a 4-4-2 with Caicedo partnering Juan Agudelo up top, and rookie speedsters Tajon Buchanan and DeJuan Jones on the wings.
It’s likely that same group will get another runout this weekend at Talen Energy Stadium, where the Revs will be hoping that Caicedo’s first two goals in a Revolution uniform have broken the ice, and perhaps even opened the floodgates for a consistent flow of goals.
“Hopefully he comes in [to training] full of confidence and is just ready and prepared to work even harder to continue to get more goals,” Friedel said of the 29-year-old striker. “He added a lot of help on the weekend with the way that he was holding the ball up and turning and running forward between the two center backs, so it was good to see.
“Hopefully we’ll see a lot more of that this weekend again.”
