FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – New England Revolution II (7-2-3; 25 pts.) is on the road this weekend to visit Chicago Fire FC II (2-6-4, 11 pts.) on Sunday night at SeatGeek Stadium. The match kicks off at 5:00 p.m. ET and streams on MLSNEXTPro.com.
Revolution II recorded a 1-1 draw against Rochester New York FC in its most recent match last Saturday. Despite surrendering the opening goal, Ryan Lima reeled Revolution II back into the match with a second-half header on Italo’s first assist of the 2022 campaign. The draw sent Revolution II to its third penalty kick shootout of the season. Jack Panayotou, Noel Buck, Sean O’Hearn and Marcos Dias each scored on their opportunities, but New England fell in the shootout, 5-4.
“I think we definitely have the ability to adjust,” Revolution II midfielder Jake Rozhansky stated. “We’ve changed the way we’ve played or defended, our formations and that kind of stuff depending on who we’re playing, so I feel like some games in the first half were just trying to get a feel for the game and see what we’re successful with or what we’re unsuccessful with and we had a pretty good couple of games where we were behind and we ended up fixing things at halftime and coming back either to get a point or to win a game. I remember we were down 2-0 and we ended up winning 3-2 a couple weeks ago, so that was a big push and boost for us. It’s a good sign for us because we can adjust when things aren’t going well.”
Jacob Jackson made three saves in last weekend’s match and continues to lead MLS NEXT Pro goalkeepers with five clean sheets and an 84.8 save percentage. Sunday’s game will be the first of two meetings between Revolution II and Chicago as New England looks to improve upon its 2-1-2 road record and 4-1-1 record over their last six matches.
“We want to hopefully take the field and be a little bit more aggressive in the first half and dictate tempo,” Head Coach Clint Peay said. “I think they’re [Chicago Fire FC II] a team that likes to build, but they will look to play in behind, but I think they take risk in their build up play, so I think pressing higher up the field early on is something that we want to try to be able to do. I think against Miami with the heat, some different guys up top for us, we kind of allowed them to have the ball in moments and we weren’t kind of all collective in how we wanted to press. I think this weekend, getting back to where we were at the beginning of the season as a pressing group is something that we want to try to initiate from the first whistle.”
Revolution II Season Memberships and single-game tickets are on sale now. For more information, email tix@revolutionsoccer.net or call 1-877-GET-REVS.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR AGAINST CHICAGO FIRE FC II:
- Goalkeeper Jacob Jackson improving on his league-leading 84.8 save percentage and surpassing 1,000 minutes played with Revolution II with his next performance.
- Forward Marcos Dias adding to his three goals this season, tied with Damian Rivera for the team lead.
- Defender Ítalo (920) surpassing 1,000 minutes played with Revolution II this season in his 13th game played.
- Homegrown midfielder Esmir Bajraktarevic making his 15th start with New England’s second team.
- Midfielder Ryan Lima adding to his team-leading 24 shots, including nine on target, this season.
- New England adding to the 38 players – and 21 Revolution Academy products – who have made their professional debuts with Revolution II thus far.
