As the third week of the New England Revolution's training camp winds to a close, one key component of a successful preseason campaign remains missing: the great outdoors.
The plush grass fields and the warm winter sun in Orlando offer welcome relief after two weeks spent training indoors. The daily intrasquad scrimmages provide an outlet to develop some semblance of match fitness, but the next step is real friendlies against other teams.
The news from Argentina (Franco Coria's pending arrival from Chacarita Juniors once he receives the necessary paperwork) and France (Ousmane Dabo's beckoning P-1 work visa) yesterday supplies the hope carried by talented reinforcements in the coming days and weeks.
All of those positive factors will yield tonight to the arrival of the sole holdout among training camp staples: ardent competition against unfamiliar faces.
Revolution midfielder Chris Tierney said he and his teammates can't wait to open its preseason schedule with a date against the University of Central Florida.
“It'll be good to go out there and compete a little bit,” Tierney said. “Playing against the same guys every day, you start to learn their tendencies a little bit and you can get into some bad habits. It's always good to test yourself against competition and see where you stand.”
The ground upon which the Revolution currently reside remains a bit uncertain after just three outdoor sessions. Revolution boss Steve Nicol said he plans to experiment with his available options as his side attempts to start its six-game preseason schedule with a victory.
“We're trying to get a balance,” Nicol said. “We want to win the games and we want to do well, but we also want to keep the balance between having a good shape and trying things.”
Although the Revs may not assume their final shape or employ their ultimate starting 11 against UCF, Nicol said he wants his team to exhibit some of the qualities he will expect to see in the season opener against Los Angeles on March 20.
“The big things that we want to see are good movement, good ball possession and trying to do the right things,” Nicol said. “That's what we want to see [against UCF].”
By submitting a performance with the basic tenets required to succeed, the Revs can lay the foundation required to develop as a team and succeed in its two subsequent Florida friendlies against the US U-17 national team (Monday) and FC Dallas (Wednesday), according to Tierney.
“We don't expect it to be a tic-tac, full-form performance,” Tierney said. “We want to work hard, start doing things right and start keeping the ball better than we did last year. Hopefully, we'll continue to progress through the rest of preseason.”
