FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Diego Fagundez's teammates kept insisting that once he broke through, he would continue to do. And after having to wait until the 10th match of the season to open his 2014 scoring account, Fagundez struck twice in New England’s 5-0 blowout of Seattle on Sunday.
“It was nice. Diego has been working really hard,” said Revolution coach Jay Heaps in his postgame press conference. “He trains extremely hard and so I see those finishes quite a bit. They just hadn’t come in a big game yet.”
Fagundez struggled to get quality shots on goal in the early parts of the season and at times looked as if he may have been pushing the matter with each passing game.
But his first score of the season, a right-footed blast from the left side of the box in the 29th minute on Sunday night, was a weight off of his 19-year-old shoulders.
“It’s a relief for me,” Fagundez told the media following the win. “I’ve been waiting for this one a while. Hopefully now I can start banging some in because I’ve been looking for this for a while.”
Through weekly film sessions, the Revolution looked to key in on Sounders defender DeAndre Yedlin’s affinity to push up the field. That became clearly evident on Fagundez’s second score, which came just 12 minutes after his first.
Rushing up the right wing, Teal Bunbury switch the point of the attack to hit Fagundez in stride after the youngster had blown past Yedlin and into the box. Fagundez then collected the ball and fired past Stefan Frei.
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“We watch video, and I knew that [Yedlin] would go up a lot,” said Fagundez. “I knew there was going to be space and I took advantage of that and they got punished for that.”
With the taste of twine on his palate, Fagundez wasn’t content with just two. But his chance at a hat trick would not materialize despite his hunger.
Still, the win was more than satisfactory.
“I thought I was going to get a third one, but sometimes it doesn’t happen.” said Fagundez. “ It’s okay, we got three points and that’s the number one thing right now.”
