FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – It didn’t matter much to the New England Revolution who they played in the Eastern Conference semifinals of the MLS Cup Playoffs, presented by AT&T, but in lining up against the Columbus Crew they get an opponent they’ve recently become very familiar with.
Over the final six weeks of the regular season, the two sides met twice, splitting one-goal victories in high intensity matches.
The Revs hope that familiarity will work to their advantage, but they aren’t taking anything for granted heading into Saturday’s leg-one match at Crew Stadium (4 pm ET; UDN).
Which team will win the series?
“It’s two games, it’s a good team, we’re familiar with each other,” said center back A.J. Soares. “It’s whoever goes out and executes. We’re both capable of winning the series, there’s no doubt about that.”
The clubs enter the series as the two hottest teams in the league, with New England winning nine of their last 11 and Columbus winning eight.
With recent intimate knowledge of what the Crew can do, New England bench boss Jay Heaps pointed to the play in the middle of the field as a place in which the battle may be won, citing strong play across both clubs' midfields.
“I think [Federico] Higuain is excellent,” said Heaps. “I think the way he plays is really good. [Tony] Tchani is coming into his own this year, and Wil Trapp is excellent.
“I like our guys as well. That’s where a lot of the game will be played, and probably the team that wins that battle is going to come out on top.”
New England have already been burnt twice by Higuain this season on free kicks, so they know they must limit the Argentine’s chances, especially late. They also know that there are other players who can burn them and that they can exploit all of this if they stick to their game plan.
“You’ve got to watch all of them,” said Soares. “Higuain can take a lot of the attention, but then those other guys can step up and hurt you. We’re aware of all of them.”
But, Revs captain Jose Goncalves said Higuain isn’t without weaknesses.
“He had two good free kicks against us,” Goncalves said. “He didn’t dictate a lot of the game. He’s not involving himself in the defensive part for Columbus. We must take this as an advantage and hurt them where he should be defending.”
