Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Semi-Healthy Semis Win for Revs

Playing in the house that Belichick built, the Revolution took a page out of the hooded genius' playbook as they squeaked out a victory without a number of core players. Imitating Belichick, who has earned a living coaching whoever's available, Steve Nicol got the Revs to the Eastern Conference finals without Shalrie Joseph or Clint Dempsey, and with a laboring Taylor Twellman.

Stuck in a 2-0 aggregate hole after an early Chicago goal, Nicol needed to press all the right buttons. First he got a goal out of Twellman before pulling his limping body back into the midfield to avoid further injury. Then, Nicol got a goal from halftime sub Pat Noonan before putting in the defensively indifferent - to put it nicely - Jose Cancela for the last few minutes of regulation and overtime when it was clear that Chicago's legs wouldn't allow a tying goal. Looks to me like he found the right buttons.

Even though Cancela didn't score, you still have to like Nicol taking a calculated risk at that point. The Revs offense looked as dormant as the Fire's and, plus, New England was at home. Everyone in the place knew the visitors would be reluctant to push numbers forward away from Toyota Park, making irrelevant the fact that Cancela likes defending about as much as Michael Jackson likes older men.

The true sign of the Revolution's depth came in the shootout, though, when keeper Matt Reis took the second PK. For a goalie to be taking a PK that early is almost unheard of, but Reis stroked the thing and there was never any doubt. He didn't take a running start, just stepped once towards the ball and blasted it to the upper corner. It was almost like Mike Vrabel catching a touchdown pass.

It was a Belichickian win for Nicol, and certainly satisfying to boot. That said, I'm sure he wouldn't mind getting some of his guns back for D.C.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home