FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Following his ejection late in Saturday’s match against D.C. United, New England Revolution coach Jay Heaps was at a loss as to why he was shown the door.
By Tuesday, however, he had succumbed to his fate for the club’s upcoming match at home against the Houston Dynamo (5 pm ET; MLS Live).
“Unfortunately, I will not be on the sideline on Saturday,” Heaps told the media prior to Tuesday’s training session, referring to the league-mandated one-game suspension following an ejection. “It is what it is.”
His ejection on Saturday came in the 90th minute of the Revs' 2-0 loss, not long after Charlie Davies was given a yellow for what was deemed to be a dive at the top of the box.
In a physical matchup that featured 28 fouls and four yellow cards, the officials surely heard plenty of debate from both benches, but according to the Professional Referee Organization (PRO), Heaps was ejected for "foul and abusive language to the match officials."
“Unfortunately, I was a little bit too emotional on the sideline and was shown the exit,” Heaps said. “We were warned that they were going to crack down a little bit, as you can see by the benches being away from the fourth official.”
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As a hard-nosed defender in his playing days, Heaps endured his fair share of ejections, the last coming in a 2008 SuperLiga match versus Mexican club Altante.
Although he won't be patrolling the sidelines in this weekend's rematch against the Dynamo, Heaps is confident that his team will be ready to start a reversal of fortune with first assistant and former D.C. United head coach Tom Soehn at the helm.
"I think we'll look at it a couple of different ways," said Heaps, whose club lost 4-0 to Houston in the season opener. "We don't like the run of results we've had. We're going to continue to fight through and try to mend all of those."
