FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Between his 22-year playing career, his time as a television analyst with FOX, and his coaching stints with U.S. Soccer and now the New England Revolution, Brad Friedel has done his fair share of traveling.
That’s why the Revolution’s current 25-day stretch in Foxborough – back-to-back home games sandwiched around a bye weekend – is such a treat, offering players and coaches a much-needed opportunity to settle for a bit after spending the entire month of February on the road.
“I haven’t been in one place for this long in a long time,” Friedel said with a laugh after Wednesday morning’s training session at Gillette Stadium. “It’s an important time. Two of the players (Teal Bunbury and Antonio Delamea) have also had new arrivals in their lives, so it’ll be nice for them to spend some time with their loved ones.
“But it’s also a time that we can put in some more work, and get some more added fitness that we want to keep building on through the season.”
In that sense, it’s an opportune time for the Revs to have a bye on the schedule, particularly when considering they’ll play on 12 consecutive weekends from late March through mid-June.
There’s also a feeling, however, that players would prefer to get back on the field as quickly as possible after last weekend’s emotional win over the Colorado Rapids, as they look to build a bit of momentum through the early part of the season.
“[The time off] is really important,” said Bunbury. “It’s also tough, though, because we came off a really emotional game. We’ve been putting the work in in preseason and these first two games, so having an early bye week is great to get recovered, spend that family time and kind of get refreshed, but also a lot of guys are still itching to play.”
“Any time you can win a game like that in front of your home crowd, you always want that momentum going into the next game,” said Jalil Anibaba. “Obviously we have a bye week, so that gives us a little bit of time to just hammer things home on the training pitch, but as far as momentum, you can’t ask for anything better.”
New England’s objective will be to carry that momentum through the bye weekend and into next Saturday’s meeting with New York City FC at Gillette Stadium, something the Revs plan to do by increasing the intensity level in training to maintain that competitive spirit.
“We’re going to be doing a lot of things in training; a lot of competition, a lot of small-sided (games), working one-v-one, things like that, that are going to keep our spirits up, keep the competition high, because we don’t want to let off,” said Bunbury. “We want to keep our motivation high and we want to make sure guys are staying competitive, but also having fun.”
