WASHINGTON, D.C. – There was a sense of déjà vu on Sunday evening at RFK Stadium.
Again the New England Revolution took an early lead when Charlie Davies opened the scoring in the 10th minute. Again they had chance after chance to score a second and a third and essentially kill the game. But again they couldn’t find the breakthrough. And again their opponents made them pay.
This time it was Chris Rolfe who did the damage, drawing D.C. United level in the 70th minute before guiding home the winner from the penalty spot 11 minutes later, sending the Revs to a 2-1 loss.
“It’s just one of those games where we’ve got to close them out, and we didn’t,” said Lee Nguyen. “You let a team like D.C. hang around long enough, they’re going to find holes and that’s what happened.”
Nguyen, Davies, Chris Tierney, Juan Agudelo and Teal Bunbury all had chances go by the wayside when the Revs were on top through the first 50 minutes, leaving the door open for the home side.
Eventually United walked right through that door, slowly wresting control of the proceedings through the early stages of the second half. In response – and with the 90-plus degree temperatures zapping players of their energy – Jay Heaps made a pair of substitutions, bringing on Kevin Alston and Steve Neumann.
But the changes failed to provide the intended spark.
“[We felt] that they were getting control of the game, so we wanted to make subs to liven us up,” said Heaps. “I felt like it was going the other way. It never felt comfortable. The reason why we made the subs is because we weren’t comfortable.
“We had to make subs. Unfortunately we didn’t get a lift from the changes we made and it cost us the game.”
It was one of those subs – Neumann – who committed the foul on Miguel Aguilar which led to Rolfe’s game-winning penalty. And while Heaps admitted that he hadn’t seen a replay of the offense, at first glance he said he could have no qualms with the referee’s decision.
“I don’t think I’m going to have much argument with it, to be honest with you,” he said. “From what I saw it was a little bit reckless.”
With nothing to take from the front end of their two-game road trip, the Revs will now head to Columbus for Wednesday night’s meeting with Crew SC looking to salvage the journey.
“This was a tough game to take,” said Nguyen. “Now going into Wednesday it’s a quick turnaround, so hopefully we can forget about this and go into Columbus and get some points there.”
